


Haven't Had Enough

by smolskye



Series: soulbond 'verse [2]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Bondage, Domestic, Dubious Consent, Family Bonding, Holidays, Humiliation, M/M, Oneshot collection, Romance, Sexual Content, background mabifica, but also a lot of emotional angsty shit, otherwise some stuff isn't gonna make any sense, please read desperate measures before reading this!!, stupid useless cute shit, yes that tag is there
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-15
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-05-06 20:36:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 42,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5430002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smolskye/pseuds/smolskye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somewhere between bickering, fighting, panicking, nearly dying, fucking, drinking, and running for their lives, Dipper and Bill manage to make the best of a bad situation. </p><p>  <i>Life is weird enough without your soul permanently attached to a demon's, but since when had Dipper's life been anything but weird?</i></p><p>A collection of oneshots taking place before, in between, around, and after the events of Desperate Measures. I'd recommend reading DM before reading these.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Wedding Crashers

**Author's Note:**

> Mabel decides that she and Bill need to bond as family members.
> 
> takes place roughly around chapter 6, after 5 and before 7. this originally came from an idea i had back in july, but [a very kind anon](http://smolskey.tumblr.com/post/134803952334/hi-this-is-the-anon-that-wants-mabel-bill-bro) gave me some additional material.

It was a quiet Saturday, which was actually an uncommon occurrence, Dipper thought. Usually there was at least one thing breaking or being set on fire, or some other inconvenience would interrupt his free time. He had been laying in bed and watching Dollhouse for five hours now with no complaining, yelling, or lecturing.

At this realization, he sat up, frowning. Because if nothing was going wrong, then _something was absolutely going wrong._

He was downstairs in under a minute, glancing around and sticking his head into rooms and basically turning the whole shack upside down before concluding that neither of his housemates were even home.

He sighed in relief. _Mabel probably took Bill shopping or something. Like either of them need any more clothes...whatever. At least they’re out of trouble._

And then the front door swung open and bounced off the wall with a _bang_ and Dipper jumped, nearly falling over in his shock.

Mabel and Bill were inside in seconds, laughing and gasping for breath and wearing identical suit jackets that were dotted with scorch marks. Mabel managed to close the door despite looking as though she was about to collapse, then slumped against it, giggling and hiccuping and probably minutes away from passing out.

“Holy _shit,_ what the hell happened to you guys?” Dipper demanded from a safe distance up against the wall, staring at them and their odd and worrisome appearances.

“我们打断别人的婚礼,” Bill replied, still laughing and apparently unaware that he had just spoken Mandarin Chinese. He was stumbling all over the floor and hiccuping every few seconds and Dipper had just noticed that he wasn’t actually wearing a _shirt_ under the ruined jacket.

He shook his head at Bill disparagingly. “Nobody in this house speaks _Mandarin.”_

“We - we kinda crashed a wedding,” Mabel answered in English, lapsing into giggles again.

“You crashed - you did _what??_ Seriously??” Dipper gestured at them outrageously. “Can we _please_ have _one_ normal day this week??”

Bill stumbled forward and grabbed Dipper by his shirt front, saying, “Normal is a lifestyle I don’t choose to live,” his voice lapsing into a whisper.

Dipper pushed him away, making a face. “God, you smell awful. Mabel, how drunk is he?”

She coughed. “He _might_ have had most of a bottle of champagne, the rest of which he poured over his chest.” Dipper rolled his eyes to the extent he was afraid they might get stuck in that position. “Annnd then he drank half of another bottle in the car.”

“I am a _god,”_ Bill declared, stepping close to Dipper again and bringing his hand to his cheek, thumb pressed against his cheekbone. “Li’l tree, d’you remember that song from a few years ago called _Take Me to Church -”_

Dipper swatted him away once again, hoping to hell he wasn’t blushing, and said, “Okay, _you_ need to sleep this off, buddy.”

“Nooo, I’m _great!_ I have _so_ much energy!” Bill tried to make a dramatic gesture with both of his hands and nearly fell over, quickly leaning against a banister. “I feel - I feel like setting a _fire -_ ”

“No, no, holy God, no,” said Dipper immediately, stomping over and grabbing at Bill’s hand before he could set it ablaze. “I mean, _Jesus,_ there’re already scorch marks on you.”

Bill just grinned brazenly at him. “Y’know...what lights on fire easily? _Pine trees.”_

Dipper looked at him incredulously and demanded, “What the hell is that supposed to mean? You’re not _setting me on fire,_ if that’s what you’re saying.”

Bill set his hand on Dipper’s chest, leaned in and stage-whispered, “But do I light a fire in your _heart?”_ His yellow eyes were practically glowing.

Dipper met his gaze with a deadpan stare. “Say one more weird thing to me and I’m punching you in the face.”

“Aw, don’t threaten him, he probably doesn’t even know what he’s saying,” Mabel defended, giggling. She was still slumped against the door.

Dipper turned to her. After close inspection, he saw that Mabel was covered in _cake frosting._ “ So how exactly did this happen?? I take it you guys didn’t go out _intending_ to crash somebody’s wedding.”

“Well, it started because I decided that Bill and I needed some _private bonding time…”_

 

_Four hours earlier._

 

Bill was laying on the couch flipping through channels telekinetically, his head turned to one side and one arm beneath him, the other dangling over the edge of the couch. He hadn’t gotten up in about two hours.

Footsteps on the creaky floorboards announced Mabel’s arrival before she flounced in. “Hey, Bill.”

“Hey, Star, what’s happening?” Bill didn’t bother with looking in her direction.

She sat on the chair adjacent to the couch, crossing one leg over the other. “Listen, I was thinking...you and Dipper spend a lot of time together.”

“Because our souls are tied together for life, yep.” The volume turned down.

“But we’ve hardly spent, like, _any_ time together, just the two of us,” she pointed out. “And I think that, since we’re all living together, we should all get to know each other, right?”

“So, what, you want to have _in-law bonding time?”_ Bill asked, glancing over at her with an incredulous expression. “What did you have in mind?”

She shrugged. “I dunno, we can do whatever sounds fun. We can shop, we can drive aimlessly through town, we can drive out somewhere else -”

“Y’know where I haven’t been yet? Mount Bachelor,” Bill commented. “Haven’t seen snow yet. Is there snow up there right now?”

“Um, maybe. Yeah, we can drive to Bachelor, it’s like half an hour. It’s gonna be cold, you can borrow one of Dipper’s coats, probably, if they fit you.”

“Sounds like a plan!” Bill hovered off the couch and into a standing position, brushing some dust off his clothes. He pointed at Mabel. “We’ll be the best in-laws, Star.”

Mabel grinned and clapped her hands. “Alright, family bonding time, here we go!”

 

The half-hour drive was mostly mindless conversation, talking about TV shows and blasting bad pop music with the windows rolled down.

“Okay, serious question, though,” said Mabel as they turned onto the scenic byway, the mountain in clear sight in front of them. “Why are we _in-laws?”_

Bill huffed a laugh. “Well, your brother and I are bonded for life, and you’re his sister, and if what I remember about human marriages is correct, you’re basically my sister in-law.”

Mabel tried to stifle a smile. “So, what, you n’ Dip are _married?”_

“I think that’s the only human relationship that the soul bond can be somewhat compared to.”

She pursed her lips. “So...what’s the soul bond like, anyway? I mean, Dip’s described some of it to me, what’s it like on your end?”

“Probably not too different. As of right now, the soul bond is only in its first phases. We can only communicate telepathically and share thoughts and memories when our foreheads are touching, we can only vaguely sense each other’s physical sensations, like pain or cold or whatever, and there’s no discomfort with separation yet.”

“What’s that mean?”

“When the soul bond increases in strength, being apart from each other the way we are now will be... _difficult._ But that probably won’t happen for quite a while.” Bill put his hands behind his head and his feet up on the car dash.

“Is it...nice?” Mabel asked awkwardly.

“Nice?”

“Well, I mean...you’re sharing your entire self with someone, isn’t that kind of nice? I mean, Dipper can see like _everything_ about you, right? But there’s nothing weird about it, like, it’s just a part of your life now.”

Bill laughed, glancing over at Mabel. “Star, nothing good can come from two people knowing _everything_ about each other.” A shadow passed over his eyes briefly, golden sparks sucked into the black hole of his narrow pupils. “It’s a game of give and take, really. We can choose. Well, for the most part.”

“So...it’s... _not_ nice?”

Bill waved his hand. “It’s a fact of life now, and it’s been both an inconvenience and a _huge_ convenience. Take that as you will.” Before Mabel could respond to his cryptic answer, he leaned forward and said, “Are we coming up to it?”

Mabel flipped the turn signal and swung onto a tighter road. “Yep, we’ll be there in a minute.”

When they finally came up to the parking lot, they saw that it was pretty packed, and ended up driving all the way around twice until they managed to find a place to park. Lots of people in fancy dress were gathering around each other, some hustling inside and others sauntering at a much slower pace, talking to those around them.

“I wonder what’s going on,” Mabel commented, standing on her tip-toes to look over a rather tall car and see some of the people.

“We could follow them,” Bill suggested, a devious expression crossing his face.

Mabel grinned a sneaky grin and nodded. “Let’s do it.”

So they conspicuously followed the party inside the resort, trying to look like average guests. There were directions to where ski and snowboard rentals were, lessons, a restaurant, coffee shops, merchandise, elevators up to rooms -

Bill pointed. “There, look, they’re going to the conference center.”

Mabel overheard a woman talking to another woman, something like “bridesmaids are already here,” and said, “Okay, it’s a wedding party. I wonder where -?”

“Outside, looks like.” A few people had broken away from the larger group and were heading for a set of doors.

Mabel poked at her coat. “We’re not exactly dressed in wedding clothing. If we gate-crash, it’ll be obvious.”

Bill shrugged. “Won’t it be obvious that we’re crashing it anyway?” He elbowed her in the side. “Plus, think about the wedding cake.”

Mabel’s eyes grew huge at the thought. “Damn my insatiable lust for sugar,” she whispered to herself, clenching her fist dramatically.

“So?” Bill prompted. “Are we gonna do this?”

Mabel nodded determinedly. “We’re gonna do it. We are gonna crash the _heck_ out of this wedding.” She craned her head to try to see outside. “Looks like it’s not gonna be for a while, though. You wanna get some espresso n’ run up and down the hotel hallways?”

“Absolutely.”

 

An uncalculated amount of time later, Bill and Mabel sat hidden behind a water heater in the storage room next to the conference hall, going over the plan with each other. The chatter of people was heard outside the door, but no one would come into this room.

“Okay, so, now that we can pass for guests” - Mabel had bought a decent dress from one of the merch shops and now looked like she could be a slightly less underdressed guest - “we should be able to get in okay. You can do Jedi mind trick stuff, right?”

Bill looked affronted. “ _Excuse_ me? I can do short term hypnosis, if _that’s_ what you’re asking.”

She rolled her eyes and shoved him. “Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean. If there’s trouble with getting in, just use that and we should be good. So, main goals?”

“Get drunk,” Bill answered promptly.

“Eat a buttload of wedding cake.”

“Ooh, you should steal the bouquet.”

“Oh man, I _should.”_

“We should steal the cake, too,” Bill added.

Mabel frowned. “We can’t take the whole thing.”

“Fine, we can cut it in half and take _that._ And we can eat all the h'orderves when no one’s looking.”

“Sweet.” Mabel sighed. “I feel kinda bad about this, though…”

Bill patted her shoulder. “This is all happening around the end of the reception. It won’t be _completely_ ruined.”

She brightened. “Yeah, okay. We can just be like, ‘sorry we’re late, our car broke down,’ or whatever, if anybody happens to ask. Ah, this is so _exciting!”_ She tapped her feet against the wall. “I haven’t done anything seriously awful since last fall when me n’ some friends totally trashed this all-night waterpark. But in our defense, a lot of it was by accident.”

“Sounds like a good time.”

They fell into silence for a bit. Bill checked the time on his phone, then pocketed it again. They had both taken off their winter coats and put them back in the car, assuming they would need to make a speedy getaway once the plan was put into action. At one point, Bill stuck his head out the door to try to figure out what was going on, concluding that the reception was going steady.

“We can probably go for it now,” he said, jerking his head towards the hallway outside.

Mabel got to her feet and pushed some hair out of her face as she bounced on the balls of her feet. “This is so _exciting,_ oh my gosh, we’re actually crashing a wedding, holy crap.” She grinned almost hysterically, already red in the face.

“I’ve crashed quite a few weddings in my lifetime, but never with a partner in crime,” said Bill. “I gotta say, this is gonna be interesting.”

“ _Partner in crime?_ I love it,” Mabel replied, laughing, and held up a fist. “Bump it, partner.”

Looking a little quizzical, Bill raised his fist and tapped it against hers. “Is this a thing that humans still do?”

“‘Course! Alright, let’s do this.” Mabel cracked her knuckles, narrowed her eyes, and opened the door slowly, poking her head out.

Nobody was in the hall except for a person with their back to the two interlopers. Mabel looked in the other direction and saw nobody there, so she gestured to Bill and the two of them crept out into the hall, immediately straightening up and trying to appear casual. Mabel was still shaking slightly from excited anxiety as they approached the event room, from which music was playing.

When they walked in, nobody noticed; people were too busy dancing, or eating, or getting drinks, or talking to their friends. Mabel made a quick check at where everything was - the head table, the other tables, the cake, the dancers, the bar.

“Okay, we need to be inconspicuous,” she muttered, casting furtive glances around them. She reached for Bill’s hand. “Let’s dance, that’s normal.”

“Sure, if you can keep up,” he teased, challenging her.

She shook her head at him tragically. “You do _not_ want to test my dancing skills, Mr. Cipher. Do you even remember how to dance after four hundred years of being a floating geometric shape?”

“Hey, I have a really good memory.” They walked towards the others out on the floor and Bill pulled Mabel into a dance similar to that of the other couples.

“Okay, what’s first on the agenda?” Bill asked.

“Stealing the bouquet. Hmmm. We’ll need a distraction,” said Mabel, her brows furrowed in thought. “But not one that’ll get us kicked out prematurely.”

“Where is the bouquet? I can’t see it.”

Mabel squinted. “I can kinda see it over there, it’s...it’s over by that piano that no one’s using. Oh, that’s convenient, it’s all behind that curtain. So if I can sneak back there…”

“I can stand guard somewhere close.”

“Okay, when this song ends, we make our separate ways over there.”

“Right. I can move it somewhere else telekinetically once you get a hold of it and we’re both close to it.”

The song came to an end a few seconds and they nodded at each other briefly before turning in opposite directions and slipping into the crowd.

The first part of the operation went off without a hitch; Bill engaged a few people in conversation close to the curtain, giving Mabel the opportunity to snatch the bouquet. Once Bill was able to escape from the others, he used only his powers to send the bouquet out a back door and under a set of stairs where it wouldn’t be seen.

“Okay, that’s taken care of,” he muttered as he and Mabel moved back out into the crowd, looking casual as you please.

She grinned. “Part one done. _Bam._ Okay, I say we go after the h'orderves next, I think there’re _crab cakes_ over there and I’m going to eat _all of them._ We can go in rounds and just eat _everything._ Ohhh man, I’m gonna be so sick tomorrow…”

She realized then that Bill was no longer standing next to her. “Bill?” She looked around her, but he wasn’t anywhere close to her. She couldn’t see him at all. “Where’d he go?” she asked herself, frowning. She stood on her toes to try to see him through the crowd with no luck.

She scratched her head in confusion. _No part_ of the plan had involved either of them going off completely by themselves. “So what th’ heck is he doing?”

She started pushing her way through the crowds and past the dancers, trying to spot him. It was only after she heard simultaneous noises of shock and loud laughter that she found him.

She, too, burst into giggles. Bill was sitting on a table chugging champagne right out of the bottle while a bunch of younger guys cheered him on, most of them laughing, some of the people around them looking downright scandalized. He drank until his head was almost directly vertical, then promptly dumped the remainder of the alcohol over his head, only encouraging the laughter of the others.

Mabel, giggling, managed to walk over to him. He spotted her and grinned, licking champagne off his lips. “There you are!” he said with gusto, hiccuping. “I _really_ wanted to drink straight up champagne.”

“I can see that! You’re soaking wet, though,” Mabel pointed out. Perhaps with Bill’s interference or perhaps not, the miscellaneous men went back to doing whatever they had been doing previously.

Bill looked down at himself. “I am, aren’t I.” Without a second thought, he unbuttoned and shrugged out of his shirt, then made a flicking gesture with his hand and a suit jacket seemed to appear from nowhere. He pulled it on and adjusted it.

“Where -!”

“I think this is a _groomsman_ jacket! It’s _nice,”_ Bill declared, swaying slightly on the table. “I think it’s an Armani knockoff. A nice one. You want one?”

“I -”

Very abruptly, a jacket fell onto Mabel’s shoulders and she jumped, then laughed, amazed. “Holy crap, that’s cool.” She turned around to try to see how it fit on her waist and noticed that the two of them were attracting some looks and whispers.

“Drat, we’re getting attention,” she muttered, stepping closer to Bill. “We better make this fast.”

He nodded a bit too exuberantly and nearly fell off the table face-first. “You’re _absolutely_ right, Star.” He slid down from the table and stood straight up. “So let’s go steal that cake!” And he darted off.

“Hey, whoa!” Mabel exclaimed, tripping over her feet as she tried to catch up with keep up with him. “Teamwork, Bill, c’mon!”

She had barely managed to jog a few feet through the crowd before there was a shout from somewhere across the room. She picked up the pace, rushing and practically shoving people out of the way, and hurried to where she had seen the cake earlier. She pushed past a couple near the edge of the crowd and suddenly, everything was utter chaos.

It was a blur of people and frosting and Bill shouting “ _CATCH!”_ and possibly the best luck she’d ever been blessed with when she managed to catch the plate holding what appeared to be the cake in her hands, though he was only throwing from a couple feet away. But when she turned abruptly to see him, she smashed her face into the cake. Gasping, she quickly withdrew, and spotted a few very angry groomsmen approaching out of the corner of her eye.

Then suddenly his hand was on her arm and he was saying, “We gotta go,” as if they weren’t in danger of getting physically thrown out. “You got it?”

“No! I can’t hold this!” she said anxiously as they scrambled for the doors. People were starting to shout behind them.

“Okay, okay, I can -” Bill clicked his fingers and then the cake was hovering an inch or so off of Mabel’s hands, and she laughed hysterically as they continued sprinting for the foyer doors, the rest of the world a blur around her.

“Holy crap! Holy crap, we’re - we’re - _oh my God, Bill, we’re on fire!”_ Mabel yelped, her eyes wide in shock as she glanced down at her newly acquired jacket.

“What??” Bill glanced down at his suit jacket and nearly tripped when he saw that, yes, he was on fire. “Oh, shit, right, candles. Eh, it’ll go away,”

“ _It’ll go away??”_ Mabel demanded through her gasps for breath, as they were still running. “We’re on _fire!”_ She could feel the heat of the flames on her waist.

“Hell _yeah_ we’re on fire!” he shouted, smiling widely with all of his pointed teeth visible. “We’re on _fiiiyaaah!”_ He punched the air as he magicked one of the doors open.

Mabel couldn’t help but burst into exhilarated giggles again when they were outside and in the cold air of the mountain. They got some odd looks from other people as they stopped on the steps and took a breather for a few seconds.

“Okay,” Mabel panted. “Okay, we’ve - we’ve got the cake, we’re good, we’re good, we’re - _still on fire!”_

“We’re not out of it yet!” Bill declared, and pointed to the parking lot. “Onwards!”

“Onwards! But _seriously,_ put out the fire!”

Bill leaned down, grabbed some snow off the ground, and handed it to Mabel, then resumed running down the steps. “There, now come on!”

“That’s - okay, but _you’re_ still on fire!” Mabel exclaimed, her giggles not helping the tone of her voice.

“I was burned alive once!” Bill shouted in reply. “S’ all good!”

Mabel dared to glance behind her and saw that people in fancy dress were coming out of the doors, looking around and then pointing once they spotted them.

“Crap, Bill, they’re still after us!”

“Parking lot’s close, hurry up!”

Mabel wasn’t sure how much longer she could hurry up. She had never been good at sprinting _or_ long distance running, and she was really starting to tire, even despite not actually carrying the cake.

They rounded a corner and _thank God,_ there was their car, the only blue car in a large group of blacks and grays, and it wasn’t too far away.

They both skidded to a stop in front of it and Mabel hurriedly clicked the keys to open the hood, bouncing with fear. The second the hood swung open, she said, “Quick, put it in there!” and Bill telekinetically dropped it in, then slammed the hood down. “Get in the car, go, go!” she said frantically, hurrying to get in the driver’s seat. She slammed the door shut and started the car before either of them had really sat down, Bill finally patting out the fires on his jacket, then pulled out of the spot with a _screech_ and swung towards the exit of the parking lot. Miraculously, there was no backup getting out, and Mabel was able to floor it down the street.

Bill was completely turned around and looking behind them the whole way. “Nothing...nothing...they _just_ showed up but I don’t think they can see us! We did it, Star!” He was still swaying, still drunk, still grinning broadly to a creepy extent, but there was an intelligent, shining look in his eyes.

Running on pure adrenaline, Mabel turned and met Bill’s eyes and they both started laughing, laughing so hard they could hardly breathe, tears were welling at the corners of Mabel’s eyes by the time she was pulling back onto the scenic byway, where she slowed down to the speed limit because they were no longer the only people on the road.

But they were still laughing, only just starting to actually _breathe_ once again. “I can’t believe you poured champagne _all over yourself,”_ Mabel commented, giggling so hard she had to stuff her fist in her mouth, her face bright red.

“My finest moment. Gonna miss that shirt, though,” Bill commented tragically, and the whole thing was just so _ridiculous_ that they were crying of laughter again.

“Oh my God,” Mabel managed to say after a few minutes. “Oh my _God,_ I can’t believe we actually _crashed a wedding._ That was _incredible.”_

“Gotta say, you make a good partner in crime, Star,” Bill said, nodding with approval at her.

She gave him a thumbs up. “I’m the fun twin! Always have been!”

“That’s so true, your brother never wants to do _anything.”_

“Yeah, well, he’s a boring nerd.”

Bill snorted. “He’s gonna _kill_ us. But hey, check it.” He reached inside the jacket and pulled out another bottle of champagne.

Mabel stared at it. “How th’ _heck_ did you manage to sneak that?”

“I just made it float,” Bill replied, shrugging. He rolled down the window. “I’m gonna open this.”

Mabel shook her head, laughing. “Go ahead. Hey, will you levitate some of that cake out from the back?”

“Hm? Yeah, sure.”

A few minutes later Bill was chugging champagne and Mabel was shoveling obscene amounts of cake into her mouth while driving and they were both singing badly to _You Give Love a Bad Name,_ though Bill was singing it all in German.

“Y’know,” Bill remarked, slurring the word slightly but at least speaking English, “I can get used to in” - he hiccuped - “in-law bonding time, Star.”

She smiled, her mouth and face covered in frosting, and said, “Me too.”

 

_Present time._

 

“...and now we’re here,” Mabel finished. Bill had dragged himself to the lounge and was laying on the floor singing something quietly in French.

Dipper held his forehead in his hand. “I can’t believe I’m related to you.”

“Aw, live a little, bro.” Mabel yawned. “And with that, I’m gonna go shower, I think I have frosting in my _ears_.” She heaved herself to her feet and headed upstairs. “Also, there’s cake in th’ trunk!” she called. "Like, a  _lot_ of cake!"

Dipper sighed loudly and reluctantly headed for the lounge, where he figured he should take care of his very drunk soul bond buddy, or whatever the hell they were.

Bill’s whole face seemed to brighten up when Dipper approached, and he struggled onto his elbows in an attempt to sit up. “Ohhh _man,_ little tree, you - you missed out on a _loooot.”_

“I missed out on you getting drunk and causing complete chaos? Yeah, sounds like a real picnic,” Dipper retorted, shaking his head. “Look, are you gonna be okay? I’m not carrying you to bed.”

Bill nodded, his eyes half closed as he looked up at Dipper, inebriated beyond all belief but still with the same intelligent sparks in his eyes. Without warning, he reached up and touched Dipper’s face, palm across his cheek and his fingers sliding down to his chin. “ _Magnifique petit arbre,”_ he murmured, smiling.

Dipper wanted to move away, but he couldn’t, his heart had started beating wildly against his chest when Bill had touched him, his hand warm on his face, and he didn’t want the rush to end, no matter how much of a fucking drunken _idiot_ Bill was. So he stared dumbly down at Bill without moving, his mouth barely open.

Bill was saying something else in French, “ _Je veux que vous, et vous seul,”_ and then his hand was grabbing at Dipper’s neck and pulling him down and they were _kissing._ Bill was sloppy and uncoordinated and he tasted like alcohol but there was still the same adrenaline, the same rush, and Dipper didn’t want to pull away, no matter how much sense it made to do so.

A few blank seconds passed before some part of him woke up and forced himself to jerk away, wiping his mouth off, his face bright red and his voice abnormally high when he said, “I’m leaving you there, I don’t care.” Bill’s eyes were still closed and he was smiling rather smugly when Dipper got to his feet and marched away, swearing under his breath.

Neither of the men were aware that Mabel had come back down the stairs and was sitting on one of the middle steps, having observed the entire exchange with her eyes wide in shock and her hands pressed to her mouth. “Oh, yeah,” she said to herself, laughing. “We’re _definitely_ in-laws."


	2. Holiday Cheer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The holidays and what comes with the holidays brings up some elements of Bill and Dipper's "relationship" that they would rather not discuss.
> 
> takes place on Christmas Eve Day, 2022.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> augh i've been so busy with work and shit that this is going up a day later than i planned. i'm so sorry, i'm so bad at scheduling shit. this is pretty much unedited but i'll be fixing things tonight after its posted. there is some nsfw text + references to nsfw stuff in this chapter but nothing graphic.  
> also! i headcanon the Pines as half Jewish, half casually Christian, so they celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas, kinda based off of a friend of mine who does the same thing. i checked a calendar and apparently Hanukkah and Christmas overlap in 2022, so I suppose that's something I should mention so this makes more sense.  
> this is kind of all over the place but i've also been all over the place at the moment so i apologize.
> 
> i feel like the art i've done for billdip week over on tumblr is pretty relevant for this chapter + soulbond'verse in general. [day one](http://smolskey.tumblr.com/post/135459339539/dont-be-fucking-rude-dipper-inspired-by-that-one), [day three](http://smolskey.tumblr.com/post/135662858334/day-3-of-billdip-week-ice-skating-this-is-late%20), [day four](http://smolskey.tumblr.com/post/135734025499/bluh-im-a-day-behind-again-because-of-work-and-a), and [day five](http://smolskey.tumblr.com/post/135795964389/billdip-week-day-5-mistletoe-it-started-out-nice); i had to skip days two and six because of work, and i'd say this counts as day seven.
> 
> this is really long and really emotional and really gay. hope you like it.

“I can’t believe you actually _made_ these.”

“This is really comfortable.”

“Well, we are almost halfway through Hanukkah,” said Mabel, shrugging, her own sweater’s sleeves just slightly too long for her arms and covering her hands. “Or you can call it a few-hours-early Christmas present, I guess.”

Dipper pulled his new sweater over his head and smoothed it out. It was blue and patterned with white, with little pine trees knitted at the sleeves and the hem, and three larger trees across the chest. “Wow, this is comfortable. Seriously, great job, Mabes.”

“Thanks!” she said cheerfully, bumping her head against his shoulder. “And now we can all match!” Hers was pink and patterned with stars. She looked over at Bill, tilting her head. “Th’ yellow kinda clashes with your hair, but whatever.”

He just shrugged; his was yellow and was covered in small, alternating triangles. The sweaters as a group were remarkably tacky and cheesy. “Doesn’t matter, I _love_ it. You’ve got real talent, Star.” Mabel beamed.

Dipper sat down heavily on the couch in front of the fireplace. They had lit a fire earlier that day, as it had gotten remarkably cold outside. It hadn’t snowed in a few days, but the forecast said that more would come today, meaning more shoveling and other chores that nobody wanted to do. Letting the fates decide by flipping coins ended up being more like letting Bill decide, as they would mysteriously always land face up when he called tails.

Bill sat down next to him and leaned against him, finding his hand on the cushion. The headspace no longer _completely_ freaked out when they had physical contact, no more of the crazed, obsessive longing that had hovered about before the break, but the lovely greens still blossomed like misty flowers and they felt the same comfort, the same peace, no matter how absurd _peace_ and _demon_ sounded together. They were still two halves of a whole, after all.

Still, Dipper shoved him unceremoniously out of the way. “Dude, move.”

“But I’m _cold,”_ Bill whined, draping his arms dramatically over Dipper’s shoulders and nearly pushing him onto his back. “Take pity on a poor frozen soul -”

“You’re wearing two sweaters and sweatpants, you’re _fine.”_ Dipper pushed him off. “Make yourself useful and go get me a hard cider.”

“It’s eleven in the morning.”

“It’s five somewhere.”

Bill rolled his eyes but jumped up from the couch and headed for the kitchen. Mabel took his place, sitting on the couch next to Dipper very suddenly and almost making him start.

“ _So!_ What’re _you_ guys doing for Christmas presents this year?” Mabel asked, waggling her eyebrows and holding her chin in her hands.

Dipper snorted. “Oh, I got something for him.” He tapped his head. “I’ve had to lock everything up about it, though, considering he’d be able to see what it is if I didn’t.”

“Right. But can you tell me what it is?”

Dipper closed his eyes for a second and temporarily bricked up his side of the headspace. “Alright. I actually got him a few things, I got a print of an oil painting of Louis XIV’s court, a really old copy of Dante’s _Divine Comedy,_ and like, two stupid gag gifts I found.” Dipper started laughing at the thought. “ _God,_ they’re so hilarious. You’ll see them when he opens them. I figured we could combine a few days into a single day for giving presents, just for convenience’s sake, considering Hanukkah’s on the same week as Christmas this year.”

“Any idea what he’s getting you?” Mabel’s eyebrows almost reached her hairline.

Dipper frowned at her. “Put those the fuck down.”

She giggled and squeezed her eyes shut, then returned her eyebrows to their normal position. “So?”

Dipper rolled his eyes. “I mean, I’m not counting on anything _great._ I was out looking for stuff earlier this week and he snapchatted me pictures of him wearing a _bow_ around his neck and nothing else -”

Mabel made a face. “I could have gone without knowing that last part. The other day was bad enough -”

“We didn’t know you were home!” Dipper protested, his cheeks flushing pink. “I mean, okay, we were kind of in the open -”

“I didn’t put up the mistletoe for _your_ benefit, dipshit, Paz was coming over! And you’re supposed to _kiss_ under mistletoe, not go to second base.”

“Topic change?” Dipper asked hastily.

“Topic change,” Mabel agreed.

“What’re you getting Pacifica?”

“Well, I already gave her her presents because she left for New York last night.” Mabel sighed. “I wish she could be here, but she’s still financially dependent on her family n’ all that. Oh well. But I have stuff from her under the tree.”

The tree itself, which they had cut down from the forest as a group effort and somehow managed to get it inside without breaking it or the house in the process, stood a few feet away from the fireplace. There were Christmas lights strung up and some inherited ornaments here and there.

Dipper yawned. “I’m gonna take a nap n’ then go get food. What’re we gonna do for Christmas dinner? The usual tradition?”

Mabel brightened. “Oh, yeah, totally! Good thing we don’t keep kosher. We should probably ask Bill, though.”

“Ask me what?” Bill had returned from the kitchen, tossing a bottle of hard cider to Dipper without moving his hand; in turn, Dipper caught it without lifting a finger, then twisted off the cap and took a drink without holding the bottle.

Mabel watched this all with a calm fascination, her eyes sparkling. “That is still _so cool.”_

“You can do it too, Mabes,” Dipper pointed out.

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” As if to demonstrate, Mabel flicked her hand slightly and one of the more draping strings of Christmas lights drifted back into its proper position. “Still! It’s awesome. Also, Mom n’ Dad want some pictures of us. First holidays away from home n’ all.”

Dipper made a noise of complaint. “Do we _have_ to -”

“Yes we do!! Come on, Dip, you can be photogenic when you don’t look so grumpy all the time.” Mabel elbowed her brother in the side.

He twisted away from her. “I don’t look grumpy! And if I do, I probably have a reason.” _Like when we were taking pictures on the first day of Hanukkah and you had your hand on my ass the whole time._

Bill just grinned. _It’s not like anyone could tell._

_Still._

“Are Mom n’ Dad still mad that we’re staying here for Hanukkah and Christmas?” Dipper asked.

Mabel grimaced. “I think they’re a little mad? Maybe? They might just think that we don’t wanna spend time with them anymore, but that’s not it at all.”

Dipper sighed. “Yeah, it’s because of my _problem.”_

Bill put a hand over his chest in shock, looking offended. “Are we calling me a _problem_ now? Is calling me ‘ _that’_ passé?”

Dipper punched him in the shoulder. “It’s not necessarily _you,_ it’s the fact that we can’t be more than a couple miles from each other without feeling like we just got stabbed. Imagine being hundreds of miles away.” He paused. “And, I mean, I don’t want to leave you.”

Bill leaned closer to him, grinning. “ _Really_ now.”

Dipper leaned back in turn, putting his hands on Bill’s face and shoving him away once again. “I don’t want to leave you _alone_ in _my house_ considering the shitstorm that would probably absolutely happen. Idiot.” Despite this, the headspace told a different story as it glowed shades of pink and red, and Dipper couldn’t change the telling colors no matter how much he willed himself to.

Bill just kicked him in the side. “You’re _cruel,_ Pine Tree. _Cruel.” You looooove me. Maybe not in the same way your sister loves her girlfriend, but you do._

“No, I’m reasonable.” _Shut the hell up._

Mabel got to her feet. “Alright, I’m gonna go shower n’ clean up a bit. Oh, right - Bill, we do this thing every year where we eat a lot of seafood on Christmas Eve, you okay with that?”

“Yeah, sounds good.”

“Sweet, that makes things easier.” She tromped up the stairs, humming some Christmas carol, and a door opened and closed.

Dipper heaved himself up off the couch. “Okay, I’m gonna nap.” Bill didn’t respond, but by the time Dipper had opened the door to his room, Bill was already sitting on his bed.

Dipper rolled his eyes. “Really?”

“Really.” Bill slapped the bed next to him. “C’mon.”

Dipper sighed heavily and kicked the door closed, then stomped over and fell into bed. “You’re lucky our souls are bonded for life,” he said, his voice muffled by the pillow, “or I’d have kicked you to the curb months ago.”

“ _Hah,_ sure, sure.” Dipper felt Bill’s arm around his shoulder, felt his hair against his neck, and he allowed himself to relax.

Months had passed since the soul bond ritual, less months since Bill’s _problem_ that got wildly out of hand. Enough time had gone by that life seemed _normal_ with Bill as a regular part of it, sleeping in his bed and making coffee and laughing at old 30 Rock episodes and buying very expensive cologne from Paris, the scent of which now floated through almost every room in the house, but Dipper’s and Bill’s rooms especially. He’d caught colds and had headaches and tripped over the carpet and woken up with ridiculous bedhead and bought groceries and vacuumed the living room. He was, for all intents and purposes, a person.

And yet, he wasn’t. Dipper was reminded of this whenever he looked into Bill’s strange yellow eyes, or saw him hover effortlessly five feet off the ground, or when Bill said something that sounded much more _demonic_ than anything a human could ever say. When his sadistic side showed or he rambled about something that happened in the 1700’s or he got a little drunk and started yelling in Swahili. When his magic uprooted trees and caused small avalanches and tore things apart with barely a flick of his hand.

He wasn’t entirely a demon anymore, not with his new life and the way Dipper’s own humanity had influenced him, but he wasn’t a human either. He had become something completely new and different.

Abruptly, Dipper rolled over, his head against Bill’s neck, and heard a small noise of surprise. Then the arm around him tightened and there was a hand on the small of his back and he was pulled closer until their bodies were pressed together and the headspace glowed with their connection, the _humanity_ of their position, the emotions that drifted within their minds.

With some resignation, Dipper wrapped an arm around Bill’s side and leaned into him, comforted by every sensation except the way his heart kept jumping. It was easy to mistake the feelings they had for each other for true romantic love, he supposed, but it really should have calmed down by now.

Bill’s lips grazed Dipper’s ear as he murmured “ _Mon chéri,”_ his free hand lightly brushing his cheek.

Dipper grinned slightly against Bill’s neck, his face unfortunately warm. “I know enough French to understand _that,_ you know.”

“Hmph, you take the fun out of _everything,”_ Bill complained.

Dipper shook his head, closing his eyes. “Just go to sleep, _salop.”_

“Rude.”

 

Preparing for Christmas dinner had taken all afternoon, between shucking crab shells and cooking clams and trying to open the oysters without slicing their hands open. The lights were dimmed and there were actual candles on the table and there was soft orchestral Christmas music playing from the lounge and it felt like home.

Everything felt like home. They were hundreds of miles away from the house they had grown up in, had spent 21 Christmases in, but here and now, they were home.

After dinner, Mabel called Pacifica only to get to her voicemail.

“Man!” she complained, hanging up. “It’s like, what, almost midnight there? She’s probably asleep, I guess.” She sighed dejectedly and tossed her phone onto the ground, then slid onto her knees in front of the tree, where the boys were already sitting.

“Alright, why don’t we open, like, half of these tonight, and half of them tomorrow morning,” Dipper suggested, gesturing to the presents. There weren’t a _ton,_ but enough to suggest they were loved by their family. He pulled one out from under another and handed it to Mabel. “Here, this is from me.”

Her face lit up when she took it from him, handling it carefully. “Oooh, it’s solid, but it’s light…” She tackled the wrapping paper and shredded it off, revealing a large leather book lined with gold. “ _Ooooh,_ it’s _pretty!_ What is it?” She opened it and flipped through the pages containing lots of plastic.

“It’s, uh, it’s a photo album, I know how much you like taking photos, and I, uh, figured you’d want something for you and Pacifica, so, yeah.” Dipper cleared his throat and ran a hand through his hair. “Hope you like it.”

“I _love_ it!” Mabel threw her arms around her brother. “I’m gonna start putting stuff in it right away!” she declared when she pulled away, taking out her phone. “Y’know I can print from my phone?? Check it out -” Before Dipper could avoid it, she raised her phone and took a picture of him.

“Hey!” he protested, embarrassed. “Come on -”

She tapped at a few things on her phone, then scrambled to her feet and dashed into the office, where they could vaguely hear some printing sounds. About 20 seconds later, she came out holding a piece of paper. She slid back onto her knees and displayed it. “Check it out! It’s so fast!”

“I look stupid,” Dipper grumbled, but had to admit that it wasn’t a _bad_ picture of him. He just looked mildly surprised and flustered.

“You look _fine,”_ Bill dismissed. “Nice shot, Star.” He put an arm around Dipper’s shoulders and scooted closer until their legs were touching. “Get one of us now.”

“Sure thing!”

Dipper didn’t have time to try and move away before Mabel’s phone made the camera noise. “Come _on,_ guys. More of this and I’m taking my gift back,” he threatened.

Mabel just grinned, her eyes crinkling at the corners. “I’m pretty sure that’s against a lot of Christmas rules. Smile!” Another click.

Dipper groaned and looked away from Mabel, ducking his head into Bill’s neck. “ _Stoooop.”_

He felt Bill move when he laughed, then felt him kiss his forehead. “Why’re you so _embarrassed?” You can’t possibly dislike yourself that much, I mean, come on._

“M’ not photogenic,” Dipper mumbled. _Shut up._

Mabel was giggling. “That’s so _cute!_ I’m totally printing these, hang on!” She hopped to her feet and headed back to the office, where the printer was making more printer-y sounds.

Dipper backed away and frowned at Bill. “Dude, I don’t want my family knowing that we - that you - I’m -”

Bill raised a judgemental eyebrow. “Really? You don’t want your family knowing that we’re _lovers?”_

Dipper made a face. “Yeah, I never want to hear you say that word ever again. And _no,_ I don’t. It just - it just makes for more awkward questions that I don’t want to answer.”

“Well, we can’t hide our _relationship_ forever, little tree.” Bill pushed some hair back from Dipper’s face, their eyes meeting. “What’ll your family say when we’re 40 and still living together?”

Dipper looked away. “We’ll deal with that when people start asking questions,” he muttered. “But let’s put off that moment for as long as possible by _not doing that shit.”_

Mabel’s socks squeaked on the wooden floor, announcing her arrival. “Lookit how _cute_ these are!” she said excitedly, handing the boys the printed photos.

Dipper really hoped he wasn’t blushing or anything stupid like that because they _were_ cute, the first one was just Bill with his arm around him as he looked irritated, then his face buried in the crook of Bill’s neck with Bill laughing, then Bill kissing his forehead.

They fit so well together. Like they really were made for each other. And maybe the look of something close to _adoration_ in Bill’s eyes was only akin to some other emotion he could actually feel, but it looked enough like it that Dipper felt something twist inside of him. They looked like _love._ They weren’t, they couldn’t be, they never would be - but they looked like love.

“Can I, uh, keep these?”

Mabel stared at him. “ _Really?”_

“Yeah, they’re - well, I don’t look _too_ bad in them -”

Bill reached over and swiped the photos. “We look _great_ in these, we should put them in our own photo album, huh?”

But Dipper couldn’t stand to look at him knowing that his adoration wasn’t real. “Oh, God, _no,_ we don’t - look, Mabel and Pacifica are _dating. We_ are in a symbiotic relationship that I suggested to stop you from _destroying my family_ and, to a lesser extent, _the entire planet.”_ Dipper poked Bill in the chest, still not meeting his eyes. “So _no,_ we don’t get a photo album.” He took them back from Bill’s hand and set them on the floor. “I’m gonna open one,” he said quickly, not wanting to respond to the look on Bill’s face.

Mabel dug in the pile and tossed something to him. “Here, this is from...Mom n’ Dad.”

“Oh, sweet.” Dipper fumbled with the present. “Feels like clothes.” Opening it, he found an orange t-shirt with an X-Files print on it. “Holy shit, this is awesome!”

Mabel held up something. “There’s a note, here.”

He took it from her and read it out loud. “‘Mason, we were at a rummage sale and found this, thought you’d like it. It might be a little small, just a warning. Merry Christmas, Mom n’ Dad.’ No _way,_ this is so great! I love it!”

Mabel had her phone out again. “Hold it up and I’ll take a picture.”

He rolled his eyes but held it next to him and attempted a photo-worthy smile. She took the picture, then set her phone down. “Okay, start your presents pile.”

Dipper set the shirt aside. “Bill, pick one.”

“Ooh, okay. I’m sure there’s significantly _less_ presents for me.”

“Yeah, but I have stuff for Christmas and Hanukkah here.” Dipper gestured at the presents, then leaned forward and grabbed one. “Open this one.”

Bill held it for a moment, frowning at it. “Feels like a _book.”_

“Just open it.”

Bill shrugged and tore the wrapping off, then held it up. The multicolored tree lights bounced off of the cover. He looked genuinely surprised. “ _The Divine Comedy?_ ...wait, is this the _1472 edition??”_

Dipper nodded, smiling. “You wouldn’t believe how long I hunted around to find one of those. Did’ya know there’s only 14 left in the -”

His sentence was interrupted when Bill _hugged_ him, like a real actual hug, no hand on his ass or anything.

“This is _incredible!”_ Bill was saying, sounding actually _happy,_ what the hell? “I can’t believe you’re actually _indulging_ my cultural desires instead of calling me a _douche._ ”

“Yeah, well, it’s Christmas,” Dipper mumbled. The headspace was glowing a bright, vibrant teal green. They were both _happy._ Embarrassed, too, as pink and gray flickered throughout, but they were pale compared to the green. “I’ll be nice if you’ll be nice.” He hesitantly returned the embrace, his arms under Bill’s shoulders.

“No, but this is actually really great. Thanks, little tree.” Bill shifted his position to kiss Dipper’s cheek. Before he could struggle away, he heard the camera clicking noise and Mabel stifling her cackles.

“ _Mabel!”_ he protested loudly, detaching himself and jumping at her. Laughing, she scooted backwards and kept her arm out behind her, out of Dipper’s reach.

“Sorry, little brother, but these are pure blackmail _gold,”_ she replied, grinning cheekily. “Just in case I ever need a favor from you.”

He scowled at her. “You suck.”

She just giggled, then set her phone down - making sure to lock it first - then reached for another present in the pile. “Okay, I’m gonna open one of Paz’s presents.” She pulled out something thin that was wrapped in snowflake-patterned paper, with her name written in large calligraphy across the front and something else written beneath it. Mabel squinted at it and laughed, then held it out to the boys.

“Look, she, like, squashed your names in at the bottom.” Beneath the sprawling writing of Mabel’s name, their names were hastily scribbled in beneath the E and the L.

“Wow, that hurts,” said Dipper, but he wasn’t genuinely wounded. Though he and Pacifica had eventually reconciled their differences after she had started dating his sister, they had a bit of a fake animosity thing that persisted. “Open it.”

Mabel did so, tearing off the paper. Beneath was a thick envelope with their names again written across the front. She opened the envelope to find a folded letter, then took it out, unfolded it, and scanned it.

“‘Dear Mabel,’” she read aloud, “‘I hate that I’m going to be thousands of miles away when you’re reading this. I wish I could be there with you and the boys, but I’m probably either getting drunk with my family or sleeping. Christmas would be a lot better if I was with you right now.’” Mabel was smiling as she read on. “‘I got these for you guys for a few reasons. They’ll be pretty obvious once you see what they are. I was originally gonna get them for just the two of us, but I decided to include the boys so they can carry our stuff.’ _Hah.”_

“Is that all we’re good for?” Dipper complained. Without entirely realizing it, he sat back against Bill’s chest and didn’t react when Bill rested his chin on his head.

“‘I love you. And I know that you’re all “you don’t need to show your love through gifts” and all that crap, but consider this letter to be more proof that I love you. It’s still kinda weird writing that out, even though it’s the truest statement I’ve made in the last few months. I love you. I’m so glad that I realized that when all that shit happened in July and we were suddenly in each other’s lives every single day. I know your brother and Bill almost died, but I found out that I was in love with you, so it all evens out.’”

“She’s so _mean,”_ Bill commented, laughing. “I _like_ her.”

Mabel’s smile practically stretched ear to ear as she finished the letter. “‘I’ll bring home some stuff from New York for you. One day we’ll come here, too, you and me and the boys, maybe for the holidays, it’s so beautiful here. I want to take you everywhere and experience everything with you. I love you, Mabel. Merry Christmas and happy Hanukkah to you and the boys.’ Oh my _gosh, Paz -”_

“What exactly is the gift she’s talking about?” Bill asked, craning his head to try and see what else was in the envelope. His arms were under Dipper’s shoulders and across his chest and Dipper was too lazy and comfortable to really care.

Mabel set the letter down rather carefully, blushing like crazy, and fished out the other papers from the envelope. She had only looked at them for a second before her eyes got huge and she was almost vibrating in excitement. “Oh my _gosh, oh my gosh oh my gosh omigosh guys!”_ She held out the papers. “We’re going to Paris!”

“What?? Lemme see.” Dipper reached out and snatched them, then looked them over. They were vouchers for plane tickets - destination, Paris, France. “Holy _shit,_ we’re going to France.”

“This is the best gift _ever!_ Oh man. Oh _man.”_ Mabel took them back from Dipper, beaming. “I can’t believe it. I mean, she _said_ we were gonna have a romantic getaway sometime next year, but _Paris??_ I was gonna suggest, like, a weekend on the coast, or somethin’.”

“I guess that’s a pro of dating a rich girl,” Dipper remarked, grinning. “And a pro of having a sister who’s dating a rich girl. I’m excited.”

“Man! I’m calling her first thing tomorrow,” Mabel decided. “I’ll just scream incoherently into the phone for 15 seconds, she’ll understand.”

“Yeah, I’m sure she will.” Dipper took Bill’s hands and moved them so he could stand up. “Gonna get some Bailey’s.”

Bill got to his feet as well. “I’ll come.”

As soon as they were out of sight of the lounge, Bill had Dipper’s face in his hands and was kissing him, thumbs pushing hair behind his ears and fingers sliding down his neck and the headspace brimmed with indignance before Dipper pulled away, wiping his mouth.

“What the hell?” he hissed. “What’s your problem?”

“My _problem_ is -” Bill paused. “I don’t know exactly. There’s some human emotion floating around that I can’t place, and it’s pissing me off.” He shrugged in the over-exaggerated way he always did, shoulders rolling almost unnaturally in their sockets and his hands spread wide in the air. “And you’re a good outlet for frustration.”

“Human emotion you can’t place?” Dipper asked, frowning. He felt a lump in the back of his throat that he couldn’t swallow down. “From, uh. From you or me?”

“Hmmm, can’t tell. Everything’s too close together.” Subconsciously, they had mirrored their movements and they were close, now, everything was dark with the dim candlelight from the hall and the glow of the Christmas lights from the lounge but Dipper could still see Bill’s hands tighten around his waist - or at least he could if he were able to take his eyes away from his face, pale, eyes glowing, lines between his eyebrows marking his vexation, shadows under his cheekbones and under his mouth.

“What does it feel like?” Dipper asked, unsticking his tongue from the roof of his mouth.

Bill pulled a face and stared up and off to one side, thinking. “Feels...feels _red._ Red but...a different shade.” He raised his hand and brushed his thumb along Dipper’s cheekbone. “This shade. Your face when you’re embarrassed.”

Dipper looked away. “Embarrassment, then.”

“No, it’s not.” Bill laughed, a bit of a sneer behind it. “It's _love!_ It's your desperate, deep _longing_ for _love._ You hear your sister with her girlfriend and you want that for _us_ but you _know_ it'll never happen. You want to love me but you never will, and you want me to love you but I never will. There is no _romance_ between us. Get that through your _head,_ little tree. Learn it now before it's too late and the pain of it kills you.” His hands on Dipper's waist again, then, and onto his back, presumably unaware of the pain each of his fingers caused as Dipper felt them press into his skin. He closed his eyes; he couldn't look at Bill.

Because he was _right._ Of course he was right. He wasn't in love with Bill, but he _wanted_ to be. He wanted the same thing that his sister had with Pacifica, wanted the same emotional stability and dependency and _love._ But it would never happen. Demons could never feel romantic love, even if they were in a human body, even with Dipper's own humanity influencing him so much – there was simply nothing there. What their relationship was wasn't romantic, but it was so close to being so that he could hardly tell the two apart and he couldn't fucking handle it. His mind wasn't strong enough.

“I'll never love you romantically, the way humans can love each other,” Bill continued. He paused, his head ducked slightly and his eyes pointedly off to the left. “But I do _care_ for you, you know.”

Dipper dared to open his eyes. “You care about me.”

“'Course. I've literally _killed_ for you, remember?”

“Yeah, 'cause I'm your object,” Dipper mumbled, some bitterness in his voice.

“You're more than that now. We both know that.” Bill was completely serious when he said, “You _were_ my possession. You were for a long time. But how could my _soulmate_ be a simple _object?_ No.” He took a deep breath and exhaled. “The way I love you isn't the way you want it to be, isn't the way you _expected,_ I'm sure, but I do love you.”

Dipper shook his head. “ _What?_ So...you _do_ love me?”

“In my own way,” Bill replied nonchalantly. “In a way I can't describe. But it's more than simple possession. Our _souls_ are linked, how could I not feel more than possession?” He grinned. “Not that this changes anything about our relationship. I was going to tell you later, but I suppose now is fine.”

“You love me?” Dipper repeated, still in disbelief. His heart was pounding, _legitimately_ pounding in his chest.

“ _Not romantically,_ but yes.” Bill poked Dipper's forehead. “Make sure your simple little mind understands that.”

Dipper ducked his head and laughed. “No, I got it, trust me, I got it, you're a complete megalomaniac demon who likes getting blood on his hands, you're not capable of romantic love, I got it. It's just” - he looked up at Bill and smiled a little shrewdly - “I got you to say 'I love you.' I got you to say a _lot_ of _really embarrassing stuff.”_

Bill frowned at him. “You're saying you were _planning this?”_

“Not exactly, but, I mean, come on.” Dipper laughed again, leaning forward and resting his head on Bill's chest. “You would never admit that stuff in a billion years. You _care_ about me? You _love_ me? I think the fact that you would tell that to me is proof enough that those feelings are there. I totally got you.”

“ _Ugh._ You're _good,_ little tree.” Bill combed his fingers through his hair, looking irritated. “This is all _my fault_ for letting your emotions influence me. I hope you enjoyed that, because you're never gonna hear anything like that ever again. One moment of weakness, right there. That's it. Never again.”

“Sure, sure. _My_ emotions.” Dipper coughed very obviously. “Sure.”

Bill had his hands on Dipper's hips very suddenly, fingernails digging into his sides, and his voice was low when he said, “Do you _want_ me to _destroy_ you later? Because it sure sounds like that's what you're asking for.”

Dipper cleared his throat and looked away, biting his lip. “Uh. No.”

“You sure?”

Dipper closed his eyes, felt Bill's hands move down. “M' sure,” he mumbled, and then Bill was kissing him and he was kissing back, grabbing fistfuls of Bill's hair and not biting back a soft noise when Bill's hand slid past the band of his sweats, _you love me,_ he was thinking with a kind of victory, and Bill only responded by raking his nails down Dipper's back, especially sharp on the black triangle right on his hip bone, another quiet noise and they were kissing harder -

“GUYS!” Mabel was shouting from the lounge. “How long does it take to get drinks?? Hurry up!”

They stumbled and broke apart. “Sorry!” they shouted in unison, looking back at each other and smiling, then laughing.

Dipper headed for the kitchen and dug through the fridge, then poured some of the liquor into two glasses and added ice. They went back to the lounge more cheerful than they had left it.

Mabel frowned at them. “You took your sweet time. Can you go for more than half an hour without making out in random rooms in the house?”

“We weren't making out,” said Dipper hastily. “We were _talking.”_ They were both still breathing somewhat heavily, which was not helping his lie.

“Yeah. _Lots_ of talking,” Bill added. He grinned sleazily and wrapped an arm around Dipper's waist, brushing his knuckles on his thigh. “The language of _love.”_

Dipper groaned. _You're so fucking cheesy._ He shoved Bill. _“Stop.”_

“You could say we're both _fluent speakers -”_

“You're – you're ruining Christmas.”

“ _I'm_ ruining Christmas? You're the one who started talking about the _nature of the relationship -”_

“Y'know what? Christmas was _already_ ruined _just_ because _you're_ living in this house,” Dipper grouched, punching Bill in the shoulder. He drank about half the Bailey's in one go. “Maybe Santa really is just Satan trying to trick children.”

“Is _that_ what they're saying these days?” Bill laughed, leaned closer and whispered, “Then he's not the _only_ one _coming tonight -”_

Dipper violently pushed him away, his face bright red, and Bill landed unceremoniously on his back, laughing his ass off. Mabel looked thoroughly confused but was laughing anyway.

“You're a piece of shit,” said Dipper with conviction, still blushing, kicking Bill's leg. “Shut the fuck up. I hate you so much.”

“You _looove meeee -”_

“I'm gonna murder you.”

“See, soulmates shouldn't threaten soulmates, now you're _definitely_ ruining Christmas,” Bill pointed out, snickering. Dipper responded by throwing a present at him.

Mabel grappled for her phone and took more pictures.

 

It was past midnight and the soulmates in question were tangled up in each other, in Dipper's bed again, because the night was clear and Bill's bedroom downstairs didn't have a good view of the sky, and Bill was laying propped up slightly on one elbow, looking out at the stars. Dipper rested next to him, Bill's arm around his neck and shoulders, his eyes closed but his mind fully awake and alert and sensitive to Bill's presence. The headspace was full of _them,_ their emotions and thoughts and shared memories and words and _everything._ It was all there, swirling around in their own personal galaxy.

“Hey, I just realized something,” Bill commented, his voice slow.

His face was illuminated by moonlight when Dipper opened his eyes and looked up at him. “What?”

Bill glanced down at him. “You never said it back.”

Dipper didn't have to ask, but he did anyway. “Said what?”

“I love you.”

He felt a small pain in his chest, like a needle to the heart. “Does it need saying?”

“No,” said Bill simply. “I just always figured you'd be the first one to say it.”

Another small pain. “You thought it would actually be said?”

“Eventually, yes. Whether that _eventually_ meant today or next December or a December in five years, I didn't know. So much of you is still an enigma to me, little tree. Humans are easy as a whole, but single one out and try to pick through its head, you'll find a whole mess of irregularities. And _you,_ with your thoughts that go a million miles an hour and all your irrational worries that never stop, your ideas that go unsaid and the brilliance that hasn't been applicable since college and every miscellaneous hope or dream – how am I supposed to figure all of that out in one lifetime? _Your_ lifetime?”

He shook his head. “But don't feel too special, your sister's very similar, her strengths just lie in different areas than yours. Some humans are just... _different,_ that's the only word that would make sense in your language.” He looked back out at the night. “But, yes, I figured you would eventually say 'I love you,' ironically or not.”

“Fine.” Dipper struggled to prop himself up on his elbows too, and leaned against Bill's shoulder. “I love you.”

Bill half-smiled, angling his head slightly. “No romo?"

Dipper laughed and his whole body moved, as did Bill's. Neither of them mentioned the sadness within it. “No romo. How about, uh, co-dependence.”

“You said _symbiosis_ earlier.”

“Soulmates,” Dipper said reluctantly.

“Soulmates,” Bill agreed. He yawned and fell forward, rolling over to face Dipper, who ducked his head into Bill's chest and wrapped his arms around him, their bodies pressed together with no clothing in the way, the headspace blooming its usual gorgeous greens in response.

 _Merry Christmas, nerd,_ Dipper thought, the green freckled with his pink embarrassment.

_You're the nerd._

You're _the nerd._

_Okay, you're definitely the nerd here. I have a lot of memories to prove it._

_Ugh, fine._ A pause, and Dipper's grip tightened. _Say it again?_

A yellow glow of amusement. _I love you, little tree._

And it wasn't what Dipper had ever wanted, wasn't something he ever thought he would hear or feel or say to the man - to the _demon_ next to him, and there was some despair far beneath the gentle comfort of the headspace, but he meant it when he replied _I love you too._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FORGOT TO MENTION THIS! **not all of the oneshots are canon.** it's up to you to decide which ones are and which ones aren't. some of these are just possibilities or "what if"s.


	3. (Un)Reality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dipper has a dream.
> 
> (takes place between chapters 4 and 5.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **NSFW.** i really missed writing smut. hope this makes up for no dm update this week.  
>  i was already planning on this, and [this anon](http://smolskey.tumblr.com/post/134845493884/hi-i-was-wondering-there-was-that-one-chapter) supported the idea, so it had to happen.
> 
> dubcon, bondage, sort of asphyxiation, coercion.

Dipper wasn’t sure how he’d gotten to what appeared to be some kind of weird hotel room, but that was where he found himself, staggering up off the floor like he’d passed out down there.

“What’s...whasgoinon?” he mumbled, rubbing his head as he got to his feet, grabbing at the bed to steady himself. The edges of his vision were blurry and faded; not a good sign. Was he drunk? Hungover?

The room was empty, and there were two bags sitting against the wall. The lights were dim, and the sky was dark outside the window.

He hauled himself onto the bed, because that seemed like the right thing to do, and sat back against the pillows, which also felt pretty right. He really hoped someone would show up and explain exactly what was going on, because he had no idea. He patted his pockets for his phone but found nothing.

Just then the door handle jiggled and Dipper sat up, looking over at the door. It opened - and Bill walked in, looking a little harried and irritated. He wore a yellow shirt with a black vest and slacks, along with a bow tie, as if to resemble his normal form.

Dipper slouched, disappointed. “Oh, it’s you.”

Bill glanced over at him, surprised for barely half a second before his usual easy grin appeared. “And it’s _you._ That’s interesting.”

“What’s interesting? And why are we here?” Dipper asked cautiously.

Bill laughed and sat down on the bed, leaning back and tilting his head to an almost absurd angle. “You don’t know where we are?”

“No. Do you?”

“ _Somewhat.”_ Bill spread his arms wide and gestured around the room, somehow not falling onto his back. “We’re in your head.”

Dipper frowned. “My head? So, what, I’m -”

“- dreaming, yep!”

He rubbed his forehead. “This is a dream? Okay...so now that I’m aware of it, shouldn’t I be waking up?”

Bill shook his head. “That doesn’t always happen. And I don’t think this is a lucid dream - that is, one where you can control your actions.” He brushed some dirt off his sleeve. “I can usually tell when a human is lucid dreaming.”

“So I’m...not in control of my actions. But I’m aware that this is a dream,” said Dipper slowly, trying to actually digest the information.

“Exactly right.” Bill gave a few slow claps.

“And what are you, exactly?” Dipper asked, scooting away a little.

Bill laughed and hovered a few inches off the bed, sitting cross-legged. “I’m a _figment of your imagination,_ Pine Tree. I don’t exist outside of your subconscious. I’m not necessarily a _perfect copy_ of the real me - often we distort those in our dreams to make them suit us better. _Interestingly enough,_ nothing too obvious is different about _me.”_

Dipper had been giving Bill a suspicious look, but his eyes darted away at the last sentence. “Maybe my subconscious isn’t doing it right.”

“Or maybe your subconscious has a _masochistic_ streak,” Bill drawled, twisting over so he was floating on his back. “Wouldn’t put it past you.”

Dipper scowled. “Shut up.”

“Why’re you dreaming about me, anyway?” Bill asked innocently, his yellow eyes wide as he turned to look down at Dipper. “There’s got to be a _million_ things available for you to dream about. I don’t have the patience for an exact calculation. Your subconscious picks _me?_ I’m flattered.”

“Probably an accident,” Dipper muttered. “So what exactly is the point of this dream? Like what am I supposed to do?”

Bill shrugged. “Whatever you do is what you’re supposed to do. You aren’t breaking from what your subconscious has created. So whatever we happen to do is simply echoing how this dream is orchestrated.” He grinned broadly, the dim glow of the overhead light bouncing off his sharp teeth. “Like we’re _puppets_ of your own brain, huh, little tree?”

“W - yeah, whatever.” Dipper looked away, scratching the back of his head. Whatever the fuck his subconscious was trying to do, he wasn’t having it. No way was he going to blush, to allow himself to stare at the way Bill’s shirt ghosted over the contours and curves of his body, his mouth, his inhuman eyes as they glowed the familiar rich yellow. He dug his nails into the palms of his hands to distract himself.

But he couldn’t evade it, of course. His eyes moved against his will, meeting Bill’s for an instant, and maybe something was visible there, but he was staring determinedly at the ceiling before he could register it.

There was a flicker at the edge of his vision, some kind of angry red against the grayish haze, and the dream world went black. Before Dipper could wonder why, his vision was back and all he could see was Bill, sitting in front of him with his hands on his thighs.

He jumped backwards violently, a noise of surprise escaping from his mouth. Bill’s hands felt hot as fire against his legs, but a _good_ fire, a fire that spread from his thighs to his hips and sparked in the pit of his stomach. Now he _knew_ he was blushing, something about Bill’s sudden closeness, his touch, the intense look in his eyes.

“How _interesting,”_ Bill remarked delightedly, his tongue sliding across his lower lip. “Is this one of _those_ dreams?”

Dipper felt his heart lurch forward and quickly stammered out, “W-what’s happening? What th’ hell are you doing??”

“It’s not _up_ to me, remember?” Bill simpered as he leaned forward, their noses almost touching. “Your mind calls the shots. Whatever’s happening, your subconscious is making it happen. Mmm.” He traced Dipper’s jawline with a finger, his other hand still planted firmly on Dipper’s thigh. “Looks like you really want me, little tree,” he said, victory in his eyes.

Dipper flinched away. “That’s - you’re wrong, you’re wrong -”

“Oh, come on, it’s a _dream._ You’re _dreaming._ You can do whatever you want and you’ll be the only person to know. Your actions don’t have consequences. They don’t _mean_ anything.” Bill pushed some hair out of his face. “Let me show you,” he said softly, closing the final gap between them and kissing Dipper, hand on his neck now, fingers gently pressing on his veins and arteries as they stood out under stress.

Dipper couldn’t respond at first, too shocked and overcome by his own dream, but then he was all too aware of the body pressed against his, the mouth on his mouth, the hand crawling further up his thigh to the zipper of his jeans, the other hand hot on his neck. He felt a sheer rush of repulsion, _he’s a fucking demon he’s_ that _fucking demon and he’s kissing me he’s_ kissing _me and I -_ a sudden feeling of _desire - I_ want _him to kiss me I want his hands on me I want him I really do -_

“See? You want this,” Bill murmured into Dipper’s mouth, their lips brushing, his palm pressing down between Dipper’s legs and eliciting a tiny, sharp intake of breath that was swallowed by their kissing. “It’s a dream, little tree, don’t fight it. Just let it happen.”

But Dipper shook his head furiously in denial, breaking the kiss and saying, “No way in _hell_ am I doing _anything_ with you, I don’t _care_ if this is just a dream -”

A sharp pain, as Bill bit down hard on his shoulder, and Dipper cried out briefly before clapping a hand over his mouth. Reeling from the shock and the stabbing feeling that came from the teeth in his skin, the sudden smell of blood and the surprise from seconds earlier, he merely stumbled when Bill pushed him back against the pillows. The demon licked his lips of blood, then clicked his fingers; Dipper found his arms suddenly bound behind him, caged by thick rope and linking to ropes tied around the bed’s banisters.

Eyes wide in panic, he started to thrash, but was interrupted when more ropes appeared, these around his ankles and keeping his legs apart as they trailed under the bed and out of sight. He reflexively yanked his leg back, and the rope went taut when his knee reached his stomach.

“Hey, what the hell - how - !”

“Funny things happen in dreams. Your brain just _makes things up!_ Isn’t that fun, there’s so many more _possibilities.”_ Bill pulled at one of the ropes and watched it vibrate in the air, his eyes glowing. “This definitely opens some doors.”

Dipper struggled to free his arms to no avail, grimacing. “Let me go! What’re you trying -”

“Again, this is _your dream,_ little tree! I’m a figment of your imagination! Whatever I do, _you’re_ making me do,” Bill reminded him cheerfully, crawling over him so their eyes met. “So, what do you want me to do next?”

“Want you to _get off,”_ Dipper growled, still yanking at the ropes. “Take these off!”

Bill shook his head. “You wanted to be tied up. You wanted _me_ to be the one tying you up and keeping you down. And now…” He paused, then leaned down further, his hands brushing messy hair out of Dipper’s eyes and caressing his face before kissing him.

Dipper couldn’t do anything but return the kiss, open his mouth slightly and allow Bill to take what he wanted. He didn’t want to know what this meant about his subconscious that he was willingly dreaming about _Bill Cipher making out with him,_ so he let himself be distracted by one of his previously unknown fantasies.

Bill nipped at his lip until it split, barely enough pain to sting but enough to draw blood. Dipper could taste it, tasted it on his own lips and on Bill’s when he kissed him again, rougher this time, and then one of Bill’s hands was no longer on the bed but was trailing down Dipper’s chest and pushing up his shirt, unnaturally warm hands on his skin, and Dipper broke the kiss to take a sharp inhale.

Bill took this opportunity to laugh quietly, to trace lines on Dipper’s stomach with his finger, to ask, “Are you _warming up_ to the idea?”

“Fuck you,” Dipper mumbled, his chest starting to move with his breathing.

“That _is_ the idea,” Bill replied, shrugging, and Dipper wanted to punch him for a multitude of reasons.

Bill’s mouth on his neck, then, lips and then teeth against his skin, _in_ his skin, Dipper yelped and couldn’t bite back a cry when Bill drew blood. He felt drops rolling down his neck and felt Bill licking off the blood, kissing the bite mark, sucking a hickey into the skin directly below, and suddenly the whole room was really fucking hot and his jeans were too tight -

“That didn’t take too long,” Bill murmured into his neck. “Do you like this?” He kissed at Dipper’s collarbone and bit it as gently as he could considering his pointed teeth, eliciting a noise that Dipper tried to hold back, jerked his arm in a reflex to stuff his fist in his mouth, but he was _loud_ and Bill was laughing again, a mocking glee.

“S-stop,” he tried to say, but there was no heart behind it, no actual motivation. He gave in. It was just a dream, after all. _So it’s okay if weird shit happens,_ he told himself firmly. _You’ll probably have forgotten it by morning anyway._ He didn’t want to think about the moral dilemma more than was absolutely necessary. Maybe he could chase out the guilt with other emotions.

As if to answer him, Bill discarded his vest and shirt, tossing the probably extremely expensive clothing onto the floor without abandon, and took Dipper’s face in his hands, looking intently into his eyes. Dipper could only hold the gaze for a few seconds before he had to look away, his eyes flickering down to Bill’s chest, his stomach, how his slacks all but covered his hipbones as he knelt on the bed.

Bill’s grip on his face tightened and suddenly they were kissing again, fiercer and more _purposeful,_ Dipper’s stomach swooped knowing what was coming and his hands clenched into fists. It was great, it was _amazing,_ and then their foreheads brushed together and Dipper audibly gasped, arching his back. Somewhere far away he heard Bill laughing, but what was happening in his head was too much.

It was an explosion of color, of noise, of emotion that simultaneously sent him reeling and made him hunger for more, _more_ of whatever came with their heads touching because every small sensation was amplified, the stinging of the bite mark on his neck and Bill’s hands on him and their mouths moving together and their hips suddenly colliding, _fuck,_ he bit his lip hard.

“I figured this soul bond would have its perks,” Bill said mildly, pulling away just to speak but keeping their heads together and sounding perfectly normal while Dipper tried desperately to keep himself from making any sounds. “Didn’t know you’d be so _susceptible_ to this, though.”

_Fuck off,_ Dipper thought.

Bill just rolled his eyes and kissed him again, shuffling forward as he pushed Dipper’s shirt up to his chest, right hand trailing down to unzip his jeans. Dipper involuntarily arched his back further, pushing his hips up to meet Bill’s wandering hand, and Bill grinned savagely into the kiss and grinded his hand down.

“You want this? You really want this?” he asked, their lips brushing. When Dipper did nothing, Bill raked his fingernails down his chest and added softly, “I want an answer, little tree.”

The nickname caused a reaction that Dipper didn’t understand, an unwilling gasp and then he was nodding, saying “ _yes, yes,”_ keening when Bill kissed his neck. He couldn’t keep his body still, he _needed_ Bill touching him, and he said this much out loud.

Bill just laughed and reclined, sitting back with his knees between Dipper’s legs, and said, “Beg for it.”

Dipper gave him a distasteful look. “You’re into _that?”_

“It’s your dream, little tree.”

Dipper conceded this with a grimace. “Please,” he mumbled, looking down at the bedspread.

“I didn’t catch that.”

He took a deep breath. “ _Please.”_

“Hm. Little better. I’m not feeling the _emotion.”_ Annoyingly casual, Bill reached forward and pulled Dipper’s jeans down to his ankles, where they bunched around the ropes, and hummed under his breath, tracing lines between the freckles on Dipper’s thigh.

Now thoroughly embarrassed, Dipper turned his head to the side. “ _Please,_ just - just fucking do _something_ to me, _please,”_ he hurried to get the words out of his mouth before his brain stopped him.

“But _what_ should I do?” Bill prompted him, his voice high-pitched and mocking, and Dipper wanted to _strangle_ him.

“T-touch me, please, I w - I want you to touch me,” he said, groaning softly and trying to keep his body still when Bill finally listened to him. He closed his eyes tightly against this odd dream-reality, forcing himself to catch all sounds in his throat before betraying himself further.

He felt fabric slide on his skin and Bill’s hands on his bare hips, heard Bill laugh and make an appreciative noise. “So hard for me _already,_ little tree? All I’ve done is _kiss_ you.”

“No, you’ve done...other stuff, shut up,” Dipper muttered, his face pressed into his shoulder, cheeks burning. He stiffened and inhaled sharply a moment later when Bill took his cock in his hand and started stroking him, gentle and slow, _too_ slow. Still, he couldn’t help the groan that slipped out, his fists clenching from their position a few inches off the bed.

After an agonizing minute or so, Bill sped up, quick movements of his hand. “I wonder what _real_ me would think, seeing _this_ in your head,” he drawled. “I’d be pretty impressed with your subconscious for conjuring up such an _elaborate_ fantasy. I _am_ impressed. And I’m flattered to be featured so _prominently_ as the object of your desire.”

If Dipper didn’t trust himself to start moaning the second he stopped biting his lip, he would have had some snappy retort. Everything felt so much better than it should, _way_ more than it should, considering who was kneeled over him, but thinking about that just made it feel even _more_ intense, his toes curling into the sheets.

And then, abruptly, Bill stopped, adjusting his position. Dipper reluctantly turned his head back to see Bill suddenly very close to him, unbuckling his belt.

Equally as abruptly, Bill leaned down and kissed him, hand in his hair, then down to his chin. He pulled away, their lips still touching, and whispered, “My turn.”

Dipper felt his heart leap forward and slam itself against his rib cage, had to breathe in through his mouth just to get air in his lungs. “What - what’re you -”

Bill backed up again to take off his slacks, licking his lips and looking at Dipper with the same wicked fervor as before. “ _Mmm._ I can’t _wait_ to see how you react when I fuck your face.”

Dipper stared at him, frozen in some kind of lascivious horror, _hating_ how Bill’s words only fed the growing fire deep inside of him, then shook himself out of it and shut his eyes. “I’m not -”

“Yes, you are.” Bill’s hand on his face, his thumb across his cheekbone. “And you’ll like it.” He pressed his fingers against Dipper’s lips until Dipper reluctantly opened his mouth, then shoved them in. At the same time, he reached behind him and lightly stroked Dipper’s cock, his hand in a loose fist, eliciting a soft groan.

Dipper had barely a second’s respite after Bill removed his fingers before he felt Bill’s cock against his lips, his _face,_ hot and slick and _fuck._ He automatically stuck out his tongue, touching his lower lip; he was horrified to realize he _really_ wanted it in his mouth. Bill didn’t hesitate to push inside of him, hissing curses under his breath as he did so.

Dipper’s first reaction was _panic,_ he couldn’t _breathe._ His arms strained against the ropes that bound them, his eyes were shut so tight it _hurt,_ he made a muffled noise and Bill pulled out only to hold Dipper by the sides of his head and shove back in. Dipper felt tears welling at the corners of his eyes, there was just _so much,_ Bill was too _big,_ but at the same time he still wanted it, wanted to lay back and take it. The thought, set aflame, raced down and across his body, and a hot delirium began to creep into his head.

Bill combed his fingers through Dipper’s hair. “That’s it, little tree.” He was moving his hips slowly, an easy pace. “It’ll be fine. You kinda _like_ it, don’t you? You like being treated like a fucktoy?” he sneered, fisting his hand in Dipper’s hair and snapping his hips forward, filling Dipper’s mouth, his throat.

Dipper’s eyes opened wide in shock, tears threatening to fall down his furiously red cheeks, and he tried to protest, but his voice and the vibrations that accompanied it only acted to incense Bill further. He sped up, a fast rhythm that he matched by gripping Dipper’s hair and pulling his head forward. Dipper couldn’t help but whimper with every thrust, every motion, every wet sound of Bill’s cock on his tongue and in his mouth.

Bill huffed a laugh, sounding slightly out of breath but maintaining his pace. “So good,” he murmured, his other hand resting on Dipper’s cheek. “You’re incredible. You have _no idea_ how badly I want to be inside you.”

Dipper groaned something and strained hard against the ropes again, his hands turning white as he struggled, but if anything he was _more_ receptive, opening his mouth further and leaning forward and using his tongue, sliding up and down Bill’s cock as if determined to taste every inch.

Bill watched him do this for as long as he could stand it, eventually growling “ _fuck”_ and pulling out, leaving Dipper gasping for air and struggling to wipe his mouth on his shoulder, looking vaguely disgusted behind his glassy eyes.

Bill rolled his eyes towards the ceiling and made a few hand gestures; Dipper abruptly found himself upside down, his arms on the bed with his wrists still bound, his head hanging, kneeling. His clothes had disappeared and the only fabric on him was the thick ropes keeping him tied to the bed. He tried to turn his head and discovered there was more rope around his neck, which was so _so_ unsafe but he was dreaming, so it was okay. It was all okay. _It’s fine._

“What’d y -”

“I had an idea.” Unable to see what Bill was doing - which simultaneously scared him and thrilled him - Dipper still knew what he was holding when he heard the sound of a tube cap opening.

Then Bill was _underneath_ him, Dipper grimaced as he felt Bill's hands on his ass and heard his contented sound from behind and beneath him. Some shuffling, and then Bill’s hips were directly beneath Dipper’s face, his cock hard against his stomach. Dipper couldn’t help but stare, he could still _taste_ it and he didn't understand why he had opened his mouth,  _fuck I think I_ want _to suck him off -_

Then, with no other warning, a slick finger pressed against him, pushed _inside_ of him, and he couldn’t stop his strangled moan, the ropes taut once again as he tensed his upper body. “ _F-fuck,”_ he panted, arching his back, his legs shaking. “Oh, fuck, I -”

Bill crooked his finger and Dipper shuddered, his toes curling. “Wow, you really _love_ this, don’t you? Have you been _gagging_ for it in real life and real me hasn’t noticed? I guess I should be paying closer attention.” Bill slid another finger inside of him on the last word and he _whimpered,_ he fucking _wanted_ it, and he hated himself for wanting it so badly, hated that he couldn’t shut up.

Bill leisurely moved his fingers in and out, making scissoring motions, and Dipper felt the stretch and wanted _more_ of it, bit his lip hard to try to prevent his soft noises.

Bill’s other hand on his ass, rubbing in circles, fingernails barely digging into his skin. “If you don’t want me hearing you, there are easier ways to keep yourself quiet.”

Dipper nodded numbly and leaned down to take the head of Bill’s cock in his mouth, licking and sucking and desperately trying to fit more and more into his mouth, down his throat, the discomfort didn’t _matter,_ Bill had _told_ him to do it, sort of -

A third finger, and his moan was obstructed by the dick in his mouth, taking as much as he could. He leaned back into Bill’s fingers, desperately wanting _more, more._

“You want more?” Bill asked, his tone annoyingly smug.

Dipper winced but nodded.

“Fine.” Bill gripped his ass hard and fucked into him near _violently_ with his fingers, too fast _too fast_ but Dipper didn’t _care,_ Bill was fucking him open _,_ it felt too good and he was too blissed out to care about humiliation, to care about the mockery he knew was coming.

This didn’t last long, though, and then Bill was pulling his fingers out, much to Dipper’s chagrin, and getting out from underneath him. The bed creaked, Bill shifting about, and Dipper felt one warm hand at his waist.

“Beg,” Bill said, his voice lower than before.

Dipper bared his teeth in embarrassment and mumbled, “Please, f-fuck me, I w - I want it -”

Bill made a disapproving noise and Dipper cried out when Bill struck him, a harsh slap on his ass that stung.

“You can do better than that, _slut.”_

“I - I want - _ah,_ I want it, I want it, please _please_ fuck me _fuck me_ I n - I need it, I need _you,”_ Dipper rambled, his voice tight and breathless, _he just called me a slut why do I_ like _that what the fuck is_ wrong _with me,_ he berated himself. “Fuck, _ah, Bill,_ I need - I need it, _please, fuck me.”_

Bill sounded satisfied when he replied with a soft “Good boy,” and shifted forward.

Dipper inhaled sharply, his body shaking, as he felt Bill’s cock against him, then pushing _inside him._ “Fuck, _oh, fuck,”_ he gasped out, his legs practically vibrating, it hurt it _really fucking hurt_ but it felt so _amazing,_ he knew he could take it and he _wanted_ it.

He felt Bill’s hips against him and heard his harsh exhale and knew he had bottomed out, their bodies flush together. “Ah, I hope you remember this dream,” Bill commented, wrapping his hands around Dipper’s waist and starting to move, ever so slowly. Every small movement sent another wave of fire flooding Dipper’s veins, culminating in his arms giving out and falling forward onto his chest. “I hope real me finds it in your subconscious and knows just what to do with you.”

“Stay - _ah -_ stay out of my mind,” Dipper managed to say, though his voice was weak and he could hardly raise his head off the bed.

Bill just laughed cruelly and began to move faster, Dipper’s hands clenching into fists as he fucked into him. “It’s so fun to mess with you, though.”

At the last word, Dipper’s head snapped up and he gasped, realized that Bill had grabbed some other loose string of rope tied around his neck and pulled sharply. He couldn’t _breathe_ for a few slow, panicked seconds, but the way the rope was constricting his throat blurred with the sensation of Bill’s cock inside of him and formed some gorgeous amalgam in the pit of his stomach.

One of Bill’s hands ran down the length of his spine. “Now, I want to hear you.” Gripping the rope in his other fist, he grabbed Dipper’s waist and almost completely pulled out, swearing under his breath. Dipper instinctively leaned back, tried to spread his legs further, propping himself up with his arms again.

“Fuck, _please,”_ he said desperately, arching his back as much as he could, “d-don’t - I w - I’m - _fuck -”_

Bill snapped his hips forward and bottomed out in seconds, Dipper’s loud moan interrupting his barely-there words. “ _F-fuck,_ please, f-fuck me harder, _please -”_

And Bill answered him, digging his nails into Dipper’s thigh and fucking him fast and rough, keeping his back in a steep arch by holding the rope as he slammed into him without abandon. “You’re so - _obedient,”_ Bill huffed, somewhat out of breath but not slowing down, enjoying Dipper’s reactions so much.

In response to this, Dipper’s whole body stiffened and he cringed, he _hated_ Bill, _hated_ him and everything he was saying and doing but _fuck,_ it felt so _right,_ Bill’s hands on him and his marks left on his neck and shoulders and his cock inside of him, like they were _meant_ to be doing this.

Then Bill thrusted into him at such an angle that he practically _screamed,_ immediately burning with embarrassment at the pathetic noise, at his weakness, but leaning back and grinding against Bill anyway, still wanting _more,_ always more.

Bill released the rope and Dipper’s head fell forward as he gulped mouthfuls of air; he hadn’t realized how deprived he was of oxygen, not with Bill fucking him like this. But he barely had a second’s respite before Bill was yanking his head back again with a fist in his hair, leaning close to his head and kissing his shoulder.

“Can’t believe you’re reacting like _this,”_ Bill murmured, his tone dark and delighted. “You really _are_ gagging for it, aren’t you? You want me?”

The silence that followed told Dipper to answer, and he struggled to remember how to say actual _words_ instead of just meaningless sounds. “Y-yes,” he panted, jerking forward with each of Bill’s movements. “Yes, I - I w - I want you, _nnh,_ fuck -”

“Mmm, do you want me to fuck you _harder?”_ Bill asked mockingly, and Dipper felt him smile against his shoulder as he fucked him just a little faster, just enough to _taunt_ him.

Dipper swallowed and mumbled, “Y-yeah, I want - please, fuck me h-harder, _fuck,_ I want it, fuck me harder, _fuck me harder, ah,”_ his voice cracked into a moan as Bill hissed out a quiet “ _shit”_ and buried his cock inside of him, their bodies pressed together for milliseconds before Bill was fucking him harder, _so much harder_ Dipper could feel _everything -_

This went on for an amount of time Dipper couldn’t measure, blurred minutes or seconds or hours of Bill fucking him and him gasping out broken moans and pleas, but Bill eventually slowed. “As much as I like you on your hands and knees, I _really_ want to see your face while I fuck you,” he said, his voice quiet from exertion. Dipper, numb from the wild delirium of sex that filled his mind, just nodded.

Like before, all Bill had to do was make some odd hand gestures, and Dipper was back in his position from before, his hands splayed out to his sides and his legs in front of him, thanks to some kind of weird dream logic. He dared to open his eyes a fraction to look at Bill, saw him with his blond hair in a mess and his chest heaving and his cock hard and slick, _fuck._ He was panting with his mouth open, staring, waiting.

Bill grabbed his thighs and pushed them back, then looked down upon him, a dark gleam in his eyes. “Mm, you’re so _hard._ I bet you could come without me even touching you.” Dipper let out an involuntary moan at Bill’s words and, unable to hesitate any longer, Bill fucked into him, baring his teeth as he slid in. He only paused for a few moments, a smile twitching on his face as he listened to Dipper’s gasps for air, then growled something unintelligible and slammed into him _hard,_ eliciting another string of broken words and desperate sounds.

“Beg for it, _slut,”_ Bill snarled, his voice cutting like razors through the haze in Dipper’s head.

“ _Ah, f-fuck, please,_ please, I’m - please, I want - I want it, I want y - you, _oh, shit, please,”_ Dipper’s voice was wretched with guilt and embarrassment but he arched his back, moved his legs, did everything he possibly could to make it easier for Bill’s cock to fill him. “ _Please, Bill, I n - I need it -”_

“ _Fuck,”_ Bill growled almost _breathlessly,_ there was a harsh slap of skin on skin with every quick movement of his hips, he was _brutal,_ nails nearly drawing blood as they dug into Dipper’s legs, fucking him relentlessly. “Only _I_ can ever fuck you like this. You’re _mine,_ little tree.”

And all Dipper could do was nod and gasp out a broken, “I - I’m yours, I’m y-yours, _yes,”_ the dark possession in Bill’s voice unimportant compared to how close he was, his arms were straining so hard against the ropes that his skin was turning white, “ _p-please,_ I w - I want to -”

“Come. _Now.”_

Bill snapped his hips forward and buried his cock inside Dipper as he came, hissing profanity under his breath, and almost simultaneously the haze of sex in Dipper’s head whited out, Bill wasn’t even _touching him_ but just his voice and his hands and his dick and _everything_ was enough for Dipper to come, his final pleas fading to silence.

Seconds passed and there was only the sound of their breathing. Dipper was shuddering, gasping for air, he was so _full._

He felt Bill shift and then he was kissing him, not as aggressive as before but with the same passion, the same fervor. Lost in the fantasy, Dipper returned the kiss with no resistance, accepted Bill’s hands as they brushed slick strands of hair away and touched his face.

When Bill backed away, he was as casual and as smug as usual. _“Knew_ you’d be a good fuck, little tree. You’ve got just the right little submissive personality under that whole _tough front_ you try to put up." He waved his hand. “So easy to mess with once I push past it. Really, you’re a _lot_ more fun when you’re being honest with who you are.”

Dipper bit back a whimper when Bill pulled out, feeling _empty._

“Did you really love it that much?” Bill asked, sitting back on his knees, amused. “Why’re you keeping real me waiting then, hm? _Make yourself available.”_ He slid his hand over the curve of Dipper’s ass. “I’ll be _happy_ to learn that you’re this much of a cockslut.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Dipper said wearily, positive his whole face was burning with embarrassment. “I’ll - I - just shut up. Fuck off. Can I wake up yet?”

Bill just laughed, running a hand through his messy hair. “I don’t know, can you?”

 

Like he’d been struck, Dipper shot straight up out of bed, his chest heaving, his mouth dry and his head hurting like holy hell.

He paused, realized he was in bed, then slouched his shoulders and fell back down, staring up at the ceiling.

“What the _fuck,”_ he complained to empty air. “What the hell was that??”

He couldn’t remember his dream no matter how hard he tried, but he knew it was _weird._ Not bad or good, just very very _weird._ He shifted his legs, paused, and made a disgusted face.

“ _Great,_ more cleaning to do,” he muttered to himself, and changed into all clean clothes after hauling himself out of bed, throwing his sheets and the clothes he had slept in into his laundry hamper, as they were a mess.

Still a little disgruntled, he headed downstairs, not bothering to attempt to detangle his curly forest of hair. He was a little irritated to be instantly greeted with loud music and Mabel’s equally loud chattering.

“...but that was after Jessica dated Mike, right? But Mike was kind of a dick, he was just mooning after _Bella_ the whole time, and she was _not_ interested. Anyway, yeah, it was after Jessica dated Mike that she punched Taylor in the face for hooking up with him at her own birthday party.”

Mabel was telling some college story as she poured coffee for herself, with Bill nodding along at the counter as he drank coffee and scrolled through his phone. He looked up when Dipper entered. “‘Morning.”

Dipper nodded in return, yawning. “Morning, guys.”

“You want any coffee?” Mabel asked, turning to him. “There’s not much left, but I can make another pot -”

“No, it’s cool, I’m fine.”

Bill beckoned Dipper over. “C’mere, little tree, I wanna show you something.”

Dipper frowned at him but complied, standing next to him. “Show me what?”

Bill reached over and held his face in his hands, then brought their foreheads together. Dipper saw nothing but black, then what appeared to be an old episode of Friends, except everything was in _French,_ and John Lennon was there for some reason, and then the scene shifted to the middle of the ocean, where a man sat on the back of a whale singing, and then the _whale_ was singing, and then somehow the _ocean_ was singing -

Dipper pulled his head away, laughing. “Dude, what the hell was that??”

“My dreams last night. _Geez,_ human dreams are _strange,”_ Bill commented, shaking his head in bewilderment. “I mean, I know I make up a lot of them, but at least mine have some _structure_ to them, this is just... _inane._ Don’t know how you put up with it.” There was a look in his eyes that Dipper couldn’t place.

“I’ll go grab the paper,” Dipper offered, and Mabel nodded as he left the kitchen.

As Mabel resumed her college story about Jessica and Mike or whatever, Bill laughed quietly to himself, grinning broadly over his coffee. It was all too easy to sneak a peek at Dipper’s own dreams while he broadcasted his own, and he’d seen exactly what he’d expected to see.

Because he had lied, obviously. The Bill in Dipper’s dream was none other than him  _inserting himself_ into the dream, not a Bill that Dipper’s mind created. No way was he going to let some _imaginary_ him have all the fun when the _real him_ was available.

Actually, he had lied twice. Once he had revealed to Dipper that he was dreaming, Dipper had just as much control over his actions as Bill did. If he had truly protested, had truly not wanted Bill to fuck him, he could have resisted enough for the dream to end. But he gave in _remarkably_ quickly. Bill congratulated himself on managing to figure out Dipper’s true feelings, his motives, rather early in their budding _relationship._ It would make the next few weeks - months, years - much more entertaining.

Still grinning to himself, he wondered what the look on Dipper’s face would be when he told him the truth about the dream. Eventually.


	4. I Carry Your Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A scramble to prepare an actual Valentine's Day leads to some self-discoveries.
> 
> February 14th, 2023.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> late and unedited, oops. hope it's still good.
> 
> my entry for the 7th day of billdip week over on tumblr.  
> [here](https://smolskey.tumblr.com/post/138971920604/ahhaha-am-i-too-late-billdip-week-rip-i), [here](https://smolskey.tumblr.com/post/139078730679/and-then-they-made-out-in-the-middle-of-the-living), [here,](https://smolskey.tumblr.com/post/139156558074/alright-alright-bill-replied-laughing-and) and [here](https://smolskey.tumblr.com/post/139211784484/you-dont-know-youre-beautiful-thats-what-makes) is the art i've done for this week. the first three you'll see in this chapter.

A calendar hit the table in front of Bill with a loud _slap._

He looked up from his phone and his cereal, raising an eyebrow at this change in scenery. “What’s this?”

Mabel was pointing at a Sunday on the calendar, one marked with a large red heart. “It’s Valentine’s Day on Sunday!” Her face was lit up with excitement, stars in her eyes. “Me n’ Paz have the _greatest_ day planned out, oh my gosh, it’s gonna be _amazing._ We’re going to brunch, the spa, _Portland_ -”

“Sounds fun,” Bill interrupted her before she could continue her list. “So, what, do you want me n’ Pine Tree to watch the house, or -”

“ _No,_ dummy, what’re _you_ gonna do for V-day?” Mabel asked, her tone bright but her expression challenging.

Bill twisted his mouth in thought. “Ummm. What’s Valentine’s Day for, again?”

Mabel rolled her eyes and sat down across from Bill. “It’s for couples. You spend the day with the person you love.”

Bill went back to his phone, scrolling through some website and saying, “Then I’m not doing anything, because I don’t _love_ anyb -”

“Oh, _come on,_ Bill, you n’ Dipper are _basically_ dating, you should do something for him!” Mabel encouraged, though she didn’t exactly make it sound like a choice. “Like, I dunno, you guys could get dinner or something.”

Bill shrugged. “Sure, why not.”

Mabel frowned at him. “You should be more enthusiastic than _that.”_

“What? We’d be spending all day together anyway. We kinda spend _every day_ together, y’know.” Bill tapped the side of his head.

“Wait, is he hearing this?”

“Nah, I closed this off. Plus, I think he’s playing video games, he doesn’t care what I’m doing.” Bill yawned. “Star, I don’t see why I should bother with this.”

Mabel groaned in frustration. “ _Because,_ you guys are together! And you love each other in one way or another, I know you do, I see how you look at him. Like he’s the center of your universe.”

Her words fell on an uncomfortable silence in which Bill crossed his legs and scoffed loudly. “I don’t do that.”

“Whatever. Look, seriously, though.” Mabel leaned forward across the table. “Dip’s...he’s never had, like, a real Valentine’s Day. _Do not_ tell him I told you this,” she ordered, and Bill nodded, finally looking interested. “He didn’t have one all through high school. In soph year he asked out a girl on V-day and she turned him down and then told, like, the entire school about it, it was awful. Senior year, the girl he liked started dating another guy _on_ V-day, n’ he was down about that for like a week after. And through college, he’s never dated anybody during February.”

She sighed, looking a little guilty. “Meanwhile, I’ve celebrated it at least five times with various people. He doesn’t say it, but I _know_ he’s been jealous of me in the past because of it. So like...I dunno. He might not say anything because he’s super stubborn and dumb, but I know he’d really love it if you, like, made an effort.”

Bill sighed and leaned back in his seat. “Fine. I’ll do Valentine’s Day.”

Mabel practically jumped out of her seat. “ _Yes!”_

“ _But,_ you have to help me.” Bill pointed at her. “I have no idea what to do.”

Mabel clapped her hands together. “Well, then I guess I, Mabel Pines, romance _expert” -_ she put her hand dramatically over her chest and made a grand gesture - “will have to educate you on the mysteries and secrets of _looove.”_

She sat back down a moment later. “Right. Okay. Why don’t we start with the basics…”

  


When Dipper woke up the next morning, eyes still half-closed from sleep, the first thing he saw was the paper on his bedside table, folded with a tree drawn on the front.

Frowning, he scooted over in his bed and reached for it, nearly knocking some stuff off the table, and snatched it, unfolding it.

He rubbed his eyes and squinted at the looping, golden calligraphy on the inside of the paper. He was eventually able to make it out -

_Roses are red,_  
Violets are blue,  
You’re cute,  
Take off your clothes

He groaned and slapped the paper down in the bed beside him. “This is gonna be one of those weeks, isn’t it,” he grumbled.

  


“ _Ow!”_ Bill yelped, dodging as Mabel tried to smack him with a balled-up sweater again. “Knock it off, Star!”

“That’s not how I told you to write a poem!” she complained. “Now he just thinks you’re an idiot, probably.”

“I can assure you that he already thinks I’m an idiot.”

“Well, then this didn’t help!”

“How do _you_ know he didn’t like it?” Bill snipped, folding his arms.

“Because even someone as uncultured as my brother knows the difference between good poetry and terrible poetry. And stuff that doesn’t even resemble poetry. Like _that.”_

Bill sat down on the ottoman. “Then what’s next?”

Mabel thought for a moment. “Okay, I got something you can’t screw up. Get him chocolate, everybody likes chocolate. But like, _normal_ chocolate,” she said hastily before Bill could say anything. “Go into town and get something.”

“Okay, and then what?”

“Then...you...give it to him. It’s that easy. And he might share it, which is a bonus.”

“Seems straightforward enough.” Bill checked his pockets for his wallet, then headed for the door. “Alright, I’ll be back in an hour.”

Barely two minutes after he left, Dipper came down the stairs, his hair a mess and holding the “poem” in his hand. “So is this _your_ doing?” he asked bluntly with no preamble.

“I told him to write a _poem,_ I definitely _didn’t_ tell him to write _that,”_ Mabel explained, continuing to fold laundry. “That’s just him being dumb.”

“Any particular reason you’ve got him writing _poetry_ for me?” Dipper asked drolly, sitting down on the couch and turning on the TV to the food network.

Mabel shrugged. “I...just thought it could be a cute gesture,” she said innocently, not wanting Dipper to know about her plan. “He obviously screwed it up, though.”

“Where is he, anyway? He usually sleeps late, and he wasn’t in m-” Dipper coughed. “I mean, he wasn’t in his room.”

Ignoring the fact that Bill’s room was downstairs and Mabel had just seen Dipper come downstairs, she replied, “He’s going to town. I sent him shopping.”

“To get what?”

“Groceries. _Ooh,_ you should get him _flowers,”_ she said excitedly, drumming her hands on a stack of shirts. “That’d be so cute!”

“Why??” Dipper asked, snorting. “Would he even appreciate it?”

“Yes,” Mabel replied firmly. “I know he would.”

Dipper mused over it, his cheeks slightly pink. “For like, Valentine’s Day, or whatever?”

“Yeah, I mean, he likes it when you...I dunno, when you actually act like you guys’re a thing. He doesn’t like the whole _love_ thing, but he likes it when you recognize that.” Mabel nodded wisely.

Dipper looked over at her, surprised. “Did he _tell_ you all that?”

She shrugged. “Some of it. A lot of it I determined myself. Whenever you hold his hand in public, _geez,_ he’s like, weirdly happy about it,” she said with a laugh. “It’s almost like _showing off.”_

“Well, _that_ sounds like him, if nothing else.” Dipper sighed. “Fine, I’ll go get flowers later, after he comes back, so I don’t run into him.”

“Sweet! He’ll love it, I’m positive,” Mabel assured him, beaming. “You guys’re so _cute.”_

“We’re not cute,” Dipper grumbled, getting up and stomping to the kitchen. “We’re very strange.”

“Strange and cute.”

“Mostly just strange.”

  


Dipper went to town at around 4 to look for flowers, hunting around along with many other people seeking to surprise someone. Some places had been picked clean, some were selling them for _way_ more than they should. Dipper was able to grab a bouquet of red roses without spending all the cash in his wallet, and tried to prepare himself for the delivery on his way home.

“Okay, I just...I just give it to him,” he muttered to himself. “Why am I even - why - _God._ This isn’t awkward. This _isn’t awkward._ We’ve been, like, _together_ for eight months, why is this kinda stuff so...weird??”

He knew the answer. It was just more complicated than he cared to consider at that moment.

Sex was one thing. Sex was easy; it kept them both safe from emotion. They would fuck and then they would go to sleep or watch TV until they went to sleep or, in some situations, get the hell out of the public restroom as fast as they could. Either way, there was no stopping and thinking. They could lose themselves in it, in their minds meshing and their bodies moving together, and they didn’t have to think about what it meant, what anything meant about it.

Then there were these _feelings_ that polluted the calm of their shared headspace sometimes. Unfamiliar swaths of odd shades of red and pink and green slicing their way through everyday emotion. As time passed they grew more and more insistent, showing up almost all the time. In the morning, when Dipper woke up with Bill’s arm around him. Leaning on each other on the couch, silently commenting on whatever inane thing they were watching and finishing each other’s sentences with no effort at all, their hands and arms and legs touching. Even when they were bickering over God-knows-what, those colors would still appear.

And of course, they chose to ignore them.

Dipper didn’t want to think about them or focus on them in any way. Because he was _not_ falling in love with _Bill Cipher._ He was _absolutely not_ doing that. Even if he had to force himself not to, he wasn’t going to.

Besides, no way in hell was Bill falling in love with him. He might be more human than be was originally, but he could never feel romance the way humans did. So it was pointless to consider in the first place.

Because of this, recognizing their relationship could get complicated when it wasn’t purely sexual. You give flowers to someone you love. To your _boyfriend._ Nothing there described what they were. Even _soulmate_ wasn’t an exact term, just something close enough that they could use if they wanted to.

Dipper did take some comfort in knowing that Bill knew just as little about what to do in this situation as he did.

When he got home, he found Mabel in the front yard humming along to music and magicking weeds out of the ground. Her whole face lit up when she saw him.

“Where’s Bill?” Dipper asked resignedly.

“He’s inside, I told him to put the pizza in the oven - those are _beautiful!”_ Mabel came running up to him just to smell the roses. “Oh man. _Man.”_ She frowned. “I gotta up my game. I’m gonna need to get Paz more flowers. _Bigger_ flowers.”

“What’re your plans, anyway?” Dipper asked, walking towards the house with his sister following him.

“ _Well,_ we have brunch at her estate in the morning, then we have three hours at a spa, then we’re doing some sightseeing up at Mt. Bachelor, then we’re taking one of her helicopters up to Portland to have dinner and see a musical - she hasn’t told me which one it is and it’s _killing_ me - and then, well.” She coughed. “As a lady, I cannot divulge the rest,” she said dramatically, turning away.

Dipper shook his head. “Geez, that’s a lot.”

“And there’s at least one more surprise thing that I don’t know about, but I’m _also_ surprising her once we get back from Portland, because _I’m_ baking a whole bunch of dessert stuff!” Mabel nodded smugly. “I am a _great_ girlfriend.”

Dipper clapped her lightly on the shoulder. “Pacifica’s lucky to have you.” He shoved the door open and Mabel gave him a look and pushed him towards the kitchen. He mouthed _I’m going,_ and she grinned brightly and headed for the lounge practically _skipping._

In the kitchen, Bill was just leaning up against the counter looking at his phone, and holy hell. Dipper still absolutely fucking hated him. He was just wearing a dark gray v-neck shirt with the sleeves rolled up about two inches above his elbows and jeans but he looked like a fucking model. Maybe a model who’d just done some serious shoplifting or bit a cop.

Already embarrassed, Dipper could think of no better thing to do than just hold out the bouquet of roses and wait, determinedly looking away.

Eventually, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Bill glance up and watched a slow, smug smile appear on his face, his eyes narrowing.

“So…”

“ _Just take them,”_ Dipper said in a voice that was way too loud and high-pitched to belong to him.

“Alright, alright,” Bill replied, laughing, and took the bouquet from Dipper. “We need, like, a vase, right?”

“Yeah. Yep. Okay, I’m just gonna -” Dipper turned to leave, his hands in his pockets and very obviously embarrassed, but Bill stopped him, grabbing his arm.

Before Dipper could give him a look, Bill kissed him on the cheek. “Thanks.”

“Y-yeah, whatever.” Dipper rubbed at the spot where Bill had kissed him and hurried out of the kitchen. He could hear Bill snickering behind him and he thought, _Shut the fuck up._

_You’re so sweet, little tree._

_I hate you._

_Your gift says otherwise._

…

_I have something for you, too. I’ll give it to you after dinner._

_Really?? Wow, okay. But it better not be more shitty poetry._

_It’s not. Don’t bash my first attempt, you’re stifling my creativity._

_Again, shut the fuck up._

Dipper wanted to avoid Bill until dinner, but the second he sat down on the couch in the lounge, Bill was there next to him.

“Dude, chill,” Dipper grouched, pointedly scooting away.

Of course, Bill only scooted next to him and threw an arm around his shoulder, pulling him close. “Ah, c’mon, little tree, we need some bonding time.”

“ _Bonding time?_ You are literally always in my head, I think we have more than enough bonding time.” Dipper struggled weakly but didn’t have the energy to actually try to get out of Bill’s grip.

“I mean _physical_ bonding time.” Bill leaned over and pressed a kiss to the top of Dipper’s head. _Physical bonding time where I’m not fucking you._

“Don’t you need to get the pizza?” Dipper reminded him.

Mabel, who had been watching this with an amused expression, set her magazine down and went to the kitchen. “I got it! You guys stay there.”

_Dammit,_ Dipper mentally grumbled. He rested his head on Bill’s shoulder anyway, closing his eyes against his neck. Warm, comfortable greens hummed away in the headspace, and a quiet classical piece of music began to play.

_Tchaikovsky?_

_Yep. Good ear. See, this is nice._

_Okay, it kind of is. Mabel’s out of sight, I’m surprised you’re not trying to make out with me._

Bill hesitated. _...Not really in the mood._

_You paused._

_I did pause._

_Stop being so cagey._

Bill grinned, his head against Dipper’s. _Never._

_You fucker._

_You love me._

The comfort of the soft green was shattered by a lightning bolt of pure hot pink, lined with crackling neon green sparks that shot through their heads and exploded. It was a violent surge of emotion neither of them were expecting, and it seemed to come from both sides, culminating in a brightly-colored mess in their shared headspace.

Dipper was the first to act, forcing it out, kicking and shoving and pushing at it until it disappeared. Bill, too, did his part in getting rid of it, though he was calmer, less incensed.

_What was that?_ Dipper demanded.

_Something weird,_ Bill replied almost nonchalantly. _Well, it’s gone now -_

_But it’s been here before, and it’ll come back. We have to do something about it. We have to get rid of it forever,_ Dipper insisted, shifting uncomfortably.

_What’s your big problem with it?_

_It’s - it’s not supposed to be here, can’t you sense that?_

_Sort of. I don’t think it realizes it’s not supposed to be here. It just barges in._

They didn’t want to give a name to it.

“Guys, come eat!” Mabel called from the kitchen, and Dipper practically leaped off the couch and ran into the other room. Bill followed him more casually, thinking just as hard, but panicking less.

No, he didn’t _like_ it. But more than disliking it, he was _intrigued_ by it. It challenged things he thought he understood about himself, it posed new theories and questions and hypotheses for him to mull over.

He had never felt more _human._ And part of him didn’t care. The other part of him, of course, was disgusted at this humanity. So he was trapped in some limbo between apathy and contempt. Throw in his new curiosity, and he was a mess of emotion. And he always hated _that._

After the trio had eaten and adjourned to the lounge and sat back to watch some old James Bond movies, Bill disappeared and came back holding some kind of box. He threw it at Dipper, who caught it with his magic,

“What’s this?” Dipper asked, inspecting the box.

“Just somethin’.”

Dipper shrugged and opened it to find an assortment of chocolates - none of which, to his relief, were shaped even remotely like a heart.

“Nice, most of these are caramel, thanks!” And it was actually genuine, both of them knew, and it was more jarring than their sarcasm ever was.

Bill sat back down next to Dipper on the couch, and Dipper got even by kissing him on the cheek. Instead of turning into an embarrassed mess as he had, however, Bill turned his head and kissed him on the mouth before he could move away.

The chasteness of it surprised Dipper; there were no rumbling scarlet thunderheads in the headspace, Bill wasn’t even trying to _bite_ him. They were just _kissing._

And it ended very quickly, too, barely five seconds. Bill just looked smug when he pulled away. “Got you.”

Dipper frowned at him and shoved at his shoulder. “Shut up.”

“Come on, guys, don’t make out, I’m right here,” Mabel complained.

“We’re not making out!” said Dipper hurriedly. “That was one kiss.”

“Hmph. It better stay that way.”

Dipper unwrapped one of the chocolates and popped it in his mouth. “Damn, this is like, high quality stuff,” he said with his mouth full. Swallowing, he asked, “How much was this?”

“25 dollars,” said Bill absentmindedly, his eyes on the TV. “Y’know, I never liked Goldfinger -”

“You spent _25 dollars_ on chocolates?”

“In case you weren’t aware, Pine Tree, we have money to throw around if we want to.”

“...still.” Dipper ate another chocolate, his eyebrows furrowed above his stormy eyes. He had always felt guilty whenever people spent a lot of money on him, and even with tons of gold money to burn, he wasn’t sure how he felt about Bill shelling out 25 dollars for _candy,_ of all things. Even the roses he’d bought had only cost seven dollars. “You make me feel like a cheapskate.”

“Well, they say the best things in life are free,” said Bill pointedly, giving Dipper a look.

_So, what, you wanna fuck later?_

_Obviously._

_Fine, but take it easy, I’m still sore from th’ night before last._

_I said I was sorry._

‘ _Sorry’ doesn’t make the bruise on my ass go away. Also, that bite on my chest bled for ten minutes._

_Only because you kept touching it._

You _were the one who kept_ licking -

“Hey, Dip, gimme one of those.” Mabel held up her hand and tapped her fingers and thumb together.

“Here, this is coconut.” Dipper handed her one.

“Ooh, I love coconut.” Then Mabel’s phone beeped and she pulled it out of her pocket. “Oh, Paz is calling!” She stuffed the chocolate in her mouth and jumped to her feet, answering her phone. “Hey, Paz! What’s up? ...oh, man, I wish I was there. We’re just sitting around watching movies…no, I’m just eating somethin’.” She headed upstairs, where the service was better, and her voice trailed off.

Bill stood up, stretching. “Gonna grab a beer, you want one?”

“Yeah.” Dipper got up as well and, with an almost determined expression, set his hands on Bill’s face and kissed him.

Bill made a little noise in surprise but responded easily, his hands moving to Dipper’s waist. Silently and out of the shared headspace, he marvelled at how his hands rested perfectly on the slight curve at Dipper’s waist, like they were made to hold him. Like _his body_ was made to hold him.

No footsteps on the stairs announced Mabel’s re-entrance, so Bill had no qualms about deepening the kiss and sliding his hands down to the small of Dipper’s back, his fingers brushing fabric just above the black triangle tattoo. One of Dipper’s hands rested on his chest, the other on his shoulder blade, arm curved underneath his own.

“So what’s all this for?” Bill murmured. “Was it my _card?”_

Dipper tried to stifle a snort when he pulled away slightly to answer. “Nope. Not even a little.”

“Then what?”

“Do I need a reason to kiss you?” Dipper replied bluntly.

“I wanna know.”

Dipper pulled away, looking almost _angry,_ and pointed at Bill when he said, “Look, we’ve been ‘together’” - he made air quotes - “for 8 months. If I want to kiss you, I will, okay?” While his voice was passionate at first, it became a mumble by the end of the sentence, his face and neck flushing pink.

Bill was just smiling. “Okay.”

Dipper leaned in to kiss him again, muttering “ _dick”_ under his breath as he did so. Bill laughed at him mentally, to which Dipper gave him a mental middle finger.

But then they heard Mabel coming down the stairs and Dipper hastily pulled away. He shoved Bill towards the kitchen and said, “Go get me a beer.”

Bill shook his head at him and headed for the kitchen as Mabel reappeared, shoving her phone back in her pocket.

“Where is Pacifica right now, anyway?” Dipper asked, hoping he wasn’t still blushing as he sat back down.

“She’s getting back tomorrow, she’s in, er...I dunno the city, but she’s somewhere in Tennessee.”

“ _Yeehaw.”_

“That’s what I said. Yeah, she’s getting back really early tomorrow and she said she’s probably gonna sleep for a while, but then I can see her. _Aah,_ I’m excited! I missed her so much,” said Mabel mournfully, sitting back down with a thump and gazing lovingly at her phone.

Dipper rolled his eyes. “She’s been gone for three days.”

“So? You’d miss Bill if he was gone for three days.”

“Are you kidding me? I’d be thanking God.”

“Rude,” Bill chastised Dipper as he came back from the kitchen. He tossed a bottle aimlessly at Dipper, who caught it and opened it with magic. “You’d be lost without me for three days.” He sat down and threw an arm around Dipper once again.

Dipper curled up against him without acknowledging it, though purple-gray resentment growled in the headspace. “I’d be absolutely fine without you. You have _way_ too high an opinion of yourself.”

“If we weren’t soulmates, we’d be able to test this.”

“Ugh, stop calling it that.”

Bill just leaned really close to Dipper’s ear and drawled “ _Sooooulllmaaates -”_

Dipper grabbed him by his face and shoved him away. He fell back against the arm of the couch, laughing.

“Shut up, guys, I can’t hear the movie,” Mabel complained, giving them a look.

“Sorry,” said Dipper quickly, sitting up straight with his hands in his lap.

Of course, Bill took this opportunity to fling himself into Dipper’s lap, looking up at him and touching his chin with his finger. “ _A_ _rbolito lindo.”_

Dipper picked up on the translation in the headspace and grumbled, “Shut up.” He couldn’t take the adoration in Bill’s eyes - it looked too _real,_ and it was confusing the hell out of him.

_Stop looking at me like that._

_Like what?_

_You - I don’t know. You look like you_ care _about me._

Some red-orange confusion from Bill’s end. _I do care about you._

_Yeah, but not...not like people care about each other. Look, we had this talk at Christmas._

_What, the whole ‘neither of us can love each other’ talk? I wasn’t aware that implied that I can’t_ look _at you._

_I know, but…_

Dipper glanced down at Bill. _Let’s just talk about this later._

He shrugged. _Fine._ And he continued casually touching Dipper’s face, his chin and the veins in his neck and his collarbone that was partially exposed until Dipper finally slapped his hand away after about ten minutes.

  


Dipper got up the next morning to find nobody else in the house. He made coffee and breakfast with no company and found the quiet somewhat unsettling.

He texted Mabel _Where are you guys?_ and set his phone down on the table.

It buzzed about a minute later. Her reply text was _we’re in town we’ll be back soon ?_

They came back about an hour later carrying bags and talking in hushed whispers, Bill rushing some stuff to his bedroom and locking it in his closet, Mabel furiously texting.

“What are you guys doing, planning a heist?” Dipper commented as he watched all of this, mildly suspicious.

Mabel froze, her eyes wide in panic for a second. “...yes. I’m a criminal. I once shot a man just to watch him die.”

Dipper shook his head and laughed. “So is Pacifica home yet?”

“She’ll be home in like another hour, she said she’ll stop by after she takes a nap.”

So Mabel spent the majority of the rest of the day with Pacifica, shooing the boys out so they could be alone. They wound up in town again, drinking coffee in a cafe already decorated with pink and white and red and little hearts. It made Dipper vaguely uncomfortable and a little nauseous.

“What’re we gonna do tomorrow?” he asked Bill eventually. He had wanted to avoid this question, as he assumed the answer would be something stupid.

But Bill just replied mysteriously with “You’ll see.”

“ _I’ll see?” Am I gonna wake up tied to the bed again? Because I never agreed to that._

Bill grinned. _No, not that._ “Yeah, you’ll see. You’ll like it.”

“Well, with a build-up like _that,_ I’d _better,”_ Dipper replied drolly.

_Cheeky._ “I promise you will. But that’s all I’m saying on the matter.”

When they left, Bill still sipping his coffee, Dipper paused for a moment and remembered something Mabel had said the day before. Pointedly looking off to his right and into shop windows, he reached for Bill’s hand.

He felt Bill’s sky-blue surprise and said stiffly, “My hand’s cold.”

Sky-blue became a light teal. “Sure, little tree.”

“Don’t call me that in public,” Dipper grouched, still staring off to his right.

“At least it sounds affectionate, I feel like the general public would be more put off by your other nickname.”

“You could always just call me by my _actual_ nickname.”

“Nah.”

Dipper let go of Bill’s hand to punch him in the shoulder, then quickly reclaimed it before he could reciprocate. He glanced over at him without moving his head and saw a different smile on his face.

Just how human was Bill Cipher?

  


Morning of the 14th, Dipper woke up rather blearily, still sleepy and not wanting to get up _at all._ Tiredly he hoped that whatever Bill had planned for them didn’t involve a lot of _moving._

Looking at the other side of the bed, he saw that Bill wasn’t there, but the impression of his body was. _So he got up not that long ago._

He yawned and struggled to sit up, scrabbling for his phone on the bedside table and checking random social media, scrolling past Facebook posts he didn’t care about containing lovey-dovey bullshit but stopping on a picture Mabel posted. It was a selfie, she was smiling widely with her eyes closed and Pacifica was kissing her cheek. The caption was just “HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!!” with a lot of little heart emojis.

So Mabel had already gone over to Pacifica’s house for brunch. It was already 11.

Then the door opened and Dipper had a sarcastic _good morning_ on the tip of his tongue that faltered when he actually looked up.

For one thing, Bill looked _stunning,_ which was both awesome and really fucking annoying. His hair was perfect and his obviously new shirt was practically tailored for him and just in general he was more gorgeous than usual that day and Dipper wondered what this fucking model of a demon-human saw in _him,_ especially in the morning when his hair was literally everywhere and the bags under his eyes were even more pronounced than usual. Aside from the whole claim thing, of course.

And then there was the fact that Bill was levitating what looked like an entire breakfast menu.

“Holy _shit,”_ Dipper managed to say, as his mouth was stuck together for multiple reasons, the biggest of which was that he was still half asleep. “Did you -??”

“Make all of this? Yep.” If it was possible for Bill to be even more pleased with himself than usual, he was. “Who’s got the greatest soulmate in the world?”

Dipper rolled his eyes. “I do.”

“You do. C’mon. Breakfast in bed. Let’s do this.”

“Was this your _big plan,_ then?” Dipper asked, amused but still taken aback, as Bill slid into bed next to him and levitated the many, many plates around them. Magic had never been more useful. “You got up early and made a shitton of food?”

“This is part one. There’s a _lot_ more coming.”

“Really?? You mean, more food, or -”

“No, more stuff we’re doing today. You’ll see. But there’s no time constraints, so...take your time.”

“I most definitely will.”

They spent at least an hour just eating and bickering and laughing and Dipper was completely fucking blown away at how _human_ it all was and how much effort Bill actually put into all of this.

“Why’d you do this?” he asked, his voice muffled by a mouthful of waffles.

Bill set down his coffee. “Because, it’s Valentine’s Day, and we’re a ‘couple.’” He made finger quotes. “So I’m supposed to do stuff like this, apparently.”

“Yeah, but you don’t _have_ to.”

“Well, I like seeing you happy.” He leaned over and kissed Dipper’s cheek. “Not that I don’t like seeing you annoyed or grumpy, because that’s hilarious, but I like this too.”

Dipper raised an eyebrow at him. “So this _isn’t_ a ploy for sex.”

Bill’s mouth twitched. “I don’t have to bother with ploys for sex anymore.”

Dipper felt himself blush and quickly looked away. _Sue me for liking sex._

He heard Bill sigh dramatically and felt his head on his shoulder. “Why are you so cynical all the time?”

“Because the world is cruel and unforgiving.” Dipper stabbed a strawberry with his fork and ate it. “And I’ve learned not to expect a lot from you.”

“Pretty dark for 11 in the morning on Valentine’s Day. _C’mon,_ little tree, we’re gonna have fun today.”

“If you say so.”

“I know so.”

When both of them were actually full, Bill magicked the dishes off to a corner of the room with the intent of getting them back downstairs later, then practically tackled Dipper, kissing him.

Dipper was mildly disgruntled, but this didn’t stop him from kissing back, his arms around Bill’s neck. “I thought you - _mmf -_ said this _wasn’t_ a ploy for sex.”

“I’m not fucking you, I’m just kissing you,” was Bill’s reply. And his warm hands wandered no further south than Dipper’s bare waist as they kept kissing, chaste, almost _sweet,_ almost _cute._

_Why -_

_Why ask why?_ Bill retorted before Dipper could finish.

Dipper sighed mentally. _Fine. Continue._

Bill kissed him _everywhere,_ eventually pulling away from his mouth to kiss his neck and his ears and his collarbone and his shoulders and his chest and Dipper had no idea how to react to this _affection._ He had never gotten this from any of his exes, and he certainly never thought he’d get it from _Bill._ But now Bill’s arms were around his stomach and he was looking at him like he was _everything._

“Shove off, you sap,” Dipper complained, half-heartedly shoving Bill away.

Of course, Bill only held him tighter and kissed him again. _Be quiet._

_You can’t make me stop thinking._

_If I can kiss you breathless, maybe I can kiss you thoughtless._

Dipper’s heart jumped against his chest and he knew Bill could tell. _You can try._

Bill grinned. _Challenge accepted._

As it was, they didn’t end up leaving the bed until around 12:30, and Dipper shooed Bill downstairs so he could shower before they were going to do whatever they were going to do. Once he looked decent, he allowed Bill to drag him out to the car.

“So where are we going?” he asked suspiciously.

“I’m driving,” was all Bill said.

Dipper shrugged and got in the passenger’s seat, buckling his seatbelt and reclining the seat. He had barely gotten situated before a blindfold appeared over his eyes. “Hey!! Okay, Bill, what the _fuck_ is this shit?? You can’t _blindfold_ me -”

“Relax, I just want it to be a surprise.”

Dipper frowned. “It feels more like you’re about to murder me in the middle of the woods.”

“That’s not very romantic, now, is it? You can pick the radio station.”

They were in the car for only about 20 minutes, but Dipper was lowkey freaking out the whole time. He knew Bill wouldn’t actually _hurt_ him, but he was prone to doing rather stupid shit, and going to the hospital would kinda ruin their date.

_Date._ Dipper snorted.

“What’s so funny about that? Isn’t that what this is?”

“Well, yeah, but it’s weird for _us.”_

“Mm, whatever.” The car slowed to a stop and the blindfold disappeared. Dipper blinked a few times and rubbed his eyes, then observed the new environment.

“I was half-right, we _are_ in the woods,” he remarked.

“Right, but this isn’t our final destination.”

Dipper very vaguely recognized the area and the trail stretching out and up into the forest, but he couldn’t place it. Whatever he remembered it from was too long ago. And now he was curious to see both where the trail led to and why Bill had chosen this walk in the first place.

Bill locked the car and they set off. Dipper assumed it wasn’t a long or difficult hike, as Bill was still wearing a button-down shirt and dark jeans and didn’t bother to bring a water bottle.

Like the day before, he reached for Bill’s hand and felt the sky-blue blinks of surprise in the headspace. Unlike the day before, he didn’t feel the need to offer an explanation.

They were content to talk to each other mentally, enjoying the natural quiet and noises of the woods and just the sensation of holding hands. Dipper continued to marvel at Bill, at his own life, at the world and the crazy shit in it and beyond.

It took half an hour of walking at an easy pace to reach what Dipper assumed was their destination as the trees thinned out and grass faded to rocks and hard dirt. It was chilly, but the sky was barely cloudy, so everything was clear when they came to the edge of the rock.

“ _Wow.”_ They were standing overlooking the entire town, every building and the pool and the schools and the houses and the shack, off in a corner, and the waterfalls and the long river as it arced out of sight between an ocean of evergreen trees and disappeared into the mountains. In front of them was the rock where Dipper remembered fighting with Gideon about halfway through that first summer.

He laughed once, his mouth closed and Bill made a noise in curiosity.

“Nothin’. I punched a nine-year-old in the face right...there.” He pointed at the rock. “Remember that?”

“I wasn’t _there_ there, but yeah, I remember.”

“Why take me here?” Dipper asked.

Bill huffed. “Do I have to have a carefully planned out, thoughtful, meaningful answer for _everything_ that I do? _Must_ I be under such close scrutiny?” He flung his arms out dramatically.

“I just wanna know, shut up.”

“I just thought the view’d be nice. Also, this.” Before Dipper could protest, Bill had slung an arm around his neck, kissed his cheek, and taken a selfie.

“ _Bill,”_ Dipper complained, rubbing his cheek. “Don’t -”

“It’s on Facebook. And - you’re tagged.”

“I hate you. My parents better not see that, they’ll be like, ‘ _why didn’t you tell us about your boyfriend?’_ ” Dipper raised his voice in imitation. “Ugh. And it’s _you._ 12-year-old me would be in shock.”

“Well, we were both different back then. You were a kid, and I was -”

“A megalomaniac with no physical form.”

“Hey, I’m still a megalomaniac. I’m just...I ‘unno, putting that all on hold for a while.” Bill shrugged. “The re-negotiations of our deal pretty much restricts all violence on my part, so I can’t try to take over the world in the next 70-odd years. I’m just being chaotic in other ways.”

“Like drinking all the tequila on New Year’s and challenging a cop to a duel while wearing nothing but Batman boxers and a French flag tied around your neck.”

“Exactly.”

He took a few random photos of the view, then shoved his phone back in his pocket. “Okay, you’re annoyed, you’re always annoyed, that’s normal. You get to pick what we do until 6.”

“What’s at 6?”

“Our reservations.” Bill had turned back the way they had come and Dipper jogged after him, actually interested.

“Reservations? Where’re we eating?”

“ _La Maison Rouge.”_

“You mean the super expensive rich place that _never_ has seats?? How the hell did you get reservations? I mean, unless you got them like a week ago -”

Bill shook his head. “Yesterday.”

“What???”

“Pine Tree, seriously, it’s like you know _nothing._ You can get almost anything if you have the money.”

“So you bribed them.”

“Of course I did. You’ve known me for _how_ long?” He grinned his usual mocking smirk at Dipper, waggling his eyebrows. “Only the best for my little tree.”

Dipper shoved him.

  


Hours passed and Dipper was amazed - and a little grouchy - that he actually was having _fun._ They had sat back just to watch TV for a while and they were cuddling and Bill wasn’t groping him or anything, though they did make out for an hour, but that’s only to be expected, really.

Dinner was resplendent and he felt _rich_ rich, like, rich personality along with being financially set. And Bill was, of course, ridiculously pretentious all evening, though Dipper suspected that some of this was just to make him laugh. Some of that idiocy went away as the night wore on and the candlelight was reflected in Bill’s golden eyes and they actually talked about real things. Current life, memories, Bill’s past lives, though he had to speak with discretion. Thoughts that were different spoken aloud than they were when thought about absentmindedly. Their fingers touched on the table and warm streaks of green flew through their heads. If it was tinged with the same bright neon that Dipper so despised, they didn’t know, or didn’t care.

As they headed out of the restaurant at around 9, Dipper laughing a little too loudly and clinging to Bill’s arm thanks to a _lot_ of red wine, he asked, “What’re we doin’ next?”

The answer was stargazing.

They sat at one of the highest points up on Mt. Bachelor at 10:00, wearing heavy coats and sitting close to each other as they stared up at the seemingly endless night, the masses and masses of stars, thousands of galaxies flickering and dancing between sparse clouds. They had an old-timey lantern in front of them, firelight on the sleeves of their coats and their pant legs and shoes. Very faint light on their chins and faces.

Bill was pointing out constellations and notable galaxies and stars and planets that Dipper hadn’t already identified, considering his expansive knowledge of astronomy. His voice was a quiet murmur that still seemed loud in the deep, utter silence of the nighttime world.

During a pause in the steady stream of space facts, Dipper leaned against Bill’s chest and said, “I like being alone with you.” Such a simple thing, really, but with so much meaning. _Trust. Acceptance. Peace._

Bill kissed the top of Dipper’s head. “Me too.”

Dipper sighed. “This is forever, isn’t it.” He looked up at the sky, bending his neck almost all the way back. “This - this all is forever. You, me, the stars, the universe.”

“Well, you won’t live forever,” Bill reminded him, as if he needed to.

“But my soul’s gonna go somewhere, right? So that lives forever.”

“True.”

More silence.

“Did I already point out Monoceros?”

“Yes.”

Bill thought for a moment. “Pictor?”

“ _I_ pointed that one out.”

Silence. Bill hummed something under his breath. A few seconds passed, and then he was singing very softly, his voice moving with the candle in the lantern.

“ _I carry your heart with me, I carry it in my heart; I am never without it.”_

He kissed the back of Dipper’s neck, pushing hair out of the way to do so. “ _Anywhere you go, my dear, and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling.”_

“I recognize that,” said Dipper slowly. “From like...freshman year in college English class.”

Bill laughed. “It’s a poem by a rather popular poet. There’s a choral arrangement.” Bill leaned his head on Dipper’s and wrapped his arms around his chest and Dipper didn’t fight, didn’t bother. He was still wine-drunk and he felt bigger than his body, bigger than anything that could hold him, weightless and free.

“I think I love you.”

He didn’t realize the words came from his mouth until almost a full minute later. “I mean like - like I love you. Even though I shouldn’t be able to. I just shouldn’t.”

Bill didn’t say anything. Dipper felt a rush of dark worry, a lump in the back of his throat.

“I know it’s - I know it’s stupid and I don’t think it’s the same as how Mabes loves Pacifica or how other people fall in love or whatever but - but this soul bond did _something_ to us and I think we’re _supposed_ to love each other -”

Bill pushed Dipper away from him to turn him around and kiss him, murmuring, “I understand.”

Dipper pulled away quickly. “You do??”

“Yes. The soul bond, my humanity - I understand. It’s not the same kind of love, no, because you still belong to me and in demonic terms I _own_ you and I _am_ still a demon after all but it is _love,_ a love I only _touched_ on back during the holidays. It’s something I can only feel because of this stupid soul bond.” Bill rapped his forehead with his knuckles. “I don’t like it.”

Dipper grinned a little shakily. “You don’t like it?”

“No, it’s _stupid._ I love you, but it’s _stupid_ love. Because it’s not anything that’s going to be _useful,_ y’know? Ah, whatever. You love me, I love you, can we go home and fuck now?”

Dipper laughed too loudly, leaning his head into Bill’s chest again and raising it to kiss his neck. “Yeah, we can - we can do that.”

  
  


It was very late and Dipper was more than a little irritated, all of his wine-borne sappiness from earlier wearing off, and Bill was laughing at him.

“Shut up and go to sleep,” he grumbled, his chest still heaving from minutes earlier, resisting the urge to smack his soulmate with a pillow.

“You were so _cute -”_

“Oi, I said shut up!” This time Dipper did hit Bill with a pillow.

“Hey, ow! Oh _come on,_ little tree.” Bill rolled over and stopped the assault by pinning Dipper’s arms across his own chest, kissing his neck.

“Fuck off,” Dipper grouched.

“You love me.”

Dipper felt a glow somewhere inside his chest and his mouth twitched. “Sometimes,”

“ _Ah,_ don’t be this way.” Bill pushed Dipper, who pushed him back. “You do. It’s there in those green colors that flare up whenever I touch you. It’s always there, hovering just beneath your other emotions. It’s in your eyes when you look at me, no matter how deep I have to search for it. It’s in the way you talk and how you act and how you kiss me. You love me. You just _told_ me that two hours ago.”

“I take it back.”

“ _What?”_ Bill demanded, sitting up. “You can’t _take it back -”_

“I’m taking my ‘I love you’ back!” Dipper declared, also sitting up and poking Bill in the chest.

Bill folded his arms. “Then I’m taking _mine_ back.”

“Good.”

“ _Good.”_

They glared at each other for a few more seconds before easing into laughter.

“Fine,” Dipper relented, falling back to the bed and scooting close to Bill. “I love you. In the weird soul bond way. I’m standing by my _no romo.”_

“Psh, sure you are,” Bill drawled, also flopping down and facing Dipper, grinning sleazily. “ _I_ can claim weird soul bond love, _you’re_ just madly in _human_ love -”

“Am not!”

“Are too.”

“ _Am n -_ okay, it doesn’t matter. Let’s - here’s an idea,” said Dipper. “We can say _I love you_ without claiming all this other shit because we _know_ that shit already. We know that it’s complicated and weird and it’s not _exactly_ like human romance stuff, we know that you’re a demon that’s also crazy influenced by humans and emotions and we know that you and I have a very weird, very turbulent violent history - we know all that shit.”

Bill nodded. “So I can say _I love you_ and you’ll understand how.”

“And I can say it and you’ll understand the same thing.”

“And then neither of us have to fall over ourselves explaining shit every single time.”

“Don’t expect to hear it very often, though,” Dipper said, giving Bill a look. “How often have I said it since Christmas?”

“Once.”

“And when was that?”

Bill sighed. “When the Roomba scared me and I shrieked and ran outside at 3 in the morning.”

“Right. So I’m not saying that every day. Treasure the times when I _do_ say it,” Dipper snipped, closing his eyes and ducking his head into Bill’s neck.

“Like the eight times you said it today?”

“Shut up.”

Bill shifted slightly and kissed him. _I love you. There, one more time._

Dipper resignedly slung an arm over Bill’s shoulder and kissed him back. _I love you too. You’re a complete fucking idiot and it’s ridiculous that we’re even in this situation, but I love you._

_There, that wasn’t so hard._

Two months ago, Dipper remembered, part of him was despondent. He would never experience the love that Mabel and Pacifica had, the true, deep love that two people - 100% actual people - could have for each other. He couldn’t. He couldn’t have two people in such similar positions in his life.

Now, he realized, it was okay. He would never have that genuine, pure love, but he had something similar enough that he could live and be happy with it.

He could be happy with Bill.

The soul bond was no longer a shackle, a ball and chain, a noose.

Dipper had never felt this free.  


* * *

 

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done

by only me is your doing, my darling)

                                                 i fear

no fate(for you are my fate, my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world, my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you  


here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

 

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)  


\-- e.e. cummings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mUY55BNzuY) is the choral arrangement of i carry your heart that i mention, sorry if it's poor quality. my choir (not in that video) sang it a few years back and it was one of my favorites. someone mentioned this poem recently and i read it again and wow. wow. it feels way too much like dm and im in physical pain. 
> 
> and because i know ppl will ask, yes i am working on dm, i've just been struggling a lot with various things lately and trying to write the last few chapters so that they're actually good is going to take a little longer. i've got a plan.


	5. Defacing Property

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During their weeks spent together, Damian learns something about Dipper that he can take advantage of. **NSFW.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first update in a loooong time, let's do this. some of you already know what this is, SO -
> 
> 1\. this is incredibly self indulgent. this is one of the most self indulgent things i have ever written.  
> 2\. the whole reason this started in the first place is because of my friend harlee all the way back in december, and i blame her for this mess.  
> 3\. this is PORN, and is very **dub/noncon,** depending on the definition of that term for you, so please keep that in mind if you decide to read!  
>  4\. in case you don't know or don't remember what damian looks like, i drew an Official™ ref sheet for him [here](https://smolskey.tumblr.com/post/145936797989/ok-i-finally-finished-the-ref-sheet-for-my)
> 
> with that said, i know SOME of you have been asking for this (u sickos), so enjoy.

Damian’s house was spacious. He had explained on the first day that he was renting it long-term, and had changed it a lot from its original design. It was very modern and sleek, very 21 st century.  Dipper had expected something more  _ Gothic,  _ more geared towards Damian’s seemingly dark aesthetic.

But such wasn’t the case. There were more than enough rooms, and they were very open, lots of broad windows and light wood and pale walls. During the summer, the interior was almost constantly bathed in sunlight, creating a very peaceful setting. There was a deck outside, with a hot tub and a small pool, and a field that stretched to a patch of woods. It was really a beautiful piece of property, tucked away down a gravel path a good mile off a main road.

Dipper’s room was about ten feet away from Damian’s; his was the smaller bedroom to accompany the master. He spent most of his time there initially until he was brave enough to venture out into the rest of the house, finding barely anything out of the ordinary. After a few days he was lounging around watching TV or doing whatever, hardly paying mind to Damian as he came and went and did his everyday things.

No matter how hospitable Damian was, he still unnerved Dipper to an extent. There was something about the unnatural color of his eyes and the way they followed Dipper around, something about the oddly effortless way he moved. He was quiet, always thinking, doing most of his activities in silence or with soft music in the background. He seemed to just  _ know  _ things, to have an endless knowledge of the world and how it worked. Despite his lack of raging chaos energy and social weirdness, he radiated paranormality simply by existing. 

Despite everything, he was still a demon. 

And yet, Dipper jerked awake one night gasping for air, noiselessly mouthing Damian’s name, his hand wrapped around his dick without him being consciously aware of it, his toes curled tightly into the fitted sheet and his other hand clutching at his pillow.

Once his frantic heartbeat calmed down, he was able to observe himself in horror, quickly jerking his hand away and trying to rationally pick apart this scenario.

Okay, Damian was attractive, that wasn’t exactly a controversial truth. He had a narrow face with sharp cheekbones, and he was muscular, as proved by some of his tighter clothes and Dipper’s inability not to stare. His hair, as nice as it was when it was styled and slicked back, looked almost better when Dipper saw him in the mornings, in a mess and over his forehead and off to one side of his head, actually effortlessly hot. They were spending a lot of time together, and Damian seemed to have little understanding of  _ personal space,  _ sometimes touching Dipper very unnecessarily, hands on his shoulders and waist and even his  _ leg.  _ And, okay, he also hadn’t gotten off in a while, caught up in contemplating his strange life and this new situation.

He shifted uncomfortably; thinking about Damian and those unnecessary touches, his unnaturally warm hands on his thigh, maybe a little higher than his thigh, had only made things  _ worse. _ Because it was 3 in the morning and he was still half asleep and he  _ really  _ wanted to get off, he resigned himself to the feelings of guilt and awkwardness he would experience the next morning and allowed thoughts of Damian in his head as he reached for his cock again.

 

The next morning, Dipper didn’t wake up until around 11, and was almost immediately hit with last night’s shame. He groaned and smacked his arm across his face;  _ why the hell am I jacking off to  _ him??  _ What is with me and demons?? This is bullshit. _

When he got up to get breakfast, Damian wasn’t around, presumably out doing God-knows-what. Relieved, Dipper decided to dawdle in the kitchen, actually bothering to make eggs and bacon instead of his usual cereal.

Damian didn’t return until around 2, and opened the door to find Dipper wrapped up in at least three blankets on the couch, watching TV.

“Are you okay?” he asked, looking both amused and concerned. “Should I turn the AC off?”

Dipper glanced up at him, hoping to God he wasn’t blushing. “Um, no, I’m just cold, I guess.”

“Do you have a fever?” Damian was by his side in seconds, holding his hand to Dipper’s forehead. His eyes flashed pastel purple for a moment before saying, “Doesn’t feel like it.”

Dipper shook his head and didn’t meet Damian’s eyes. “No, I’m fine. I’m just cozy,” he mumbled, crossing his legs.

“What’re you watching?”

“Just doing my yearly X-Files rewatch. I’m like halfway through season 4.”

“Is  _ that  _ why my Netflix history is full of sci-fi’s?” To Dipper’s dismay, Damian crossed the room and sat next to him on the couch, casually throwing an arm over the back.

“Er, yeah. Do you, uh, know the X-Files?” Dipper asked, hoping that feeble conversation could make Damian leave and prevent any inappropriate thoughts from last night to resurface. He was stupidly attractive in his unblemished white shorts and black-and-blue striped shirt.

Damian nodded. “‘Course. I  _ love  _ human science fiction, it’s fun to see just how wildly they get things wrong. But this show -  _ ah,  _ this show. They did it right so many times.” He looked back over at Dipper. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

Dipper nodded furiously and shrank into his blanket nest. “M’ fine.”

Damian sat quietly until the end of the episode, when he got up and went into the kitchen without another word. Dipper breathed a quiet sigh of relief and clicked over to the next episode.

Hours later, he was still watching TV. He’d gotten up only to get dinner that he could eat while powering through the last few episodes of season 4 and into season 5. Damian then returned, obviously having just showered, as he was wearing gray sweatpants and nothing else, his hair damp and pushed out of his face. Dipper, who had never seen Damian wearing such casual clothes, was taken aback and, considering the night before, significantly flustered. He felt like a fucking high schooler again, thinking  _ this is fucking ridiculous  _ as he made sure his lap was thoroughly covered in blankets.

“You’re  _ still  _ watching this?” Damian asked, laughing, and sat down again. “Are you going to do nothing all day?”

“Well, it’s night now,” Dipper pointed out, determinedly staring at the TV. “And I’ve done 24 hour marathons before.”

“Well, you should really get some sleep eventually. I think I want to get into your training tomorrow. You  _ do  _ want to continue your magic training, right?” Dipper was aware of Damian looking at him and reluctantly turned to him in return.

“Er, yeah, I do,” he said, managing not to fuck up the sentence. Damian shifted and the dim light flashed off of something -

Dipper very abruptly turned back to the TV, nearly cricking his neck in the process.  _ Jesus fucking Christ, of course he has fucking nipple piercings,  _ he swore mentally, as he tended to spew profanity when embarrassed.  _ What the fuck, what the fucking fuck - _

“Are you having trouble sleeping?” Damian asked.

“Uh, no, not really.”

“Are you sure? I heard something last night, I wasn’t sure if you were awake or asleep, but you sounded like you were in pain, were you having a nightmare?”

Dipper swore his heart dropped half a foot into his stomach. “I, uh. No, it wasn’t a nightmare. I, er, don’t really remember my dreams.” And he really couldn’t remember exactly what he was dreaming of before he woke up the previous night, but at least he knew what it was about.

Damian nodded. “That can happen when the brain goes through a drastic change. I’ve seen it before.” He waved his hand. “Dream demon things.”

Dipper made a noise as acknowledgement and continued watching TV in flustered silence, blankets pulled up almost to his nose.

Damian sat in almost complete silence for the rest of the night, occasionally checking his phone or commenting on something or laughing, and Dipper was disturbed, both at Damian and at himself.

He could hardly see Damian’s battle-self here in this living room in the dim golden light of a single lamp. The only parts of him that reminded Dipper of that night in Newport or the abandoned building in Austin or his nightmares were his glowing purple eyes, his curved teeth, and the arms that occasionally burst rather undramatically from his back and helped him with chores or preparing food. He was a surprisingly good cook.

It was almost easy to forget he was a murderer, a remorseless killer with a grudge. But it was all he knew, because of what he was, and his centuries of humanity didn’t change his core self. He was still wicked and horrible and evil. His revenge drove his bloodlust. He had no moral compass.

But  _ fuck  _ if he wasn’t weirdly hot. Dipper continued to swear like a sailor in his head. It almost drowned out the pain of the gaping hole that still ached, the guilty feeling behind his unwilling attraction.

He started yawning at around midnight, started actually feeling a little tired closer to 1.

“M’ gonna go to bed,” he said eventually, as Damian had remained there, and threw off his many layers of blankets.

Damian stood up. “Allow me.” To Dipper’s shock, he  _ picked him up  _ and held him seemingly effortlessly in his arms.

“You - you don’t have to d -”

“Really, it’s not an issue.” Damian turned to the hallway that led to the bedrooms.

“Okay,” Dipper mumbled. His whole arm tingled when it brushed against Damian’s bare skin, and he was positive his face burned red when he rested his head against Damian’s chest. 

To his confusion, Damian opened the door to his own room rather than Dipper’s.

“What -”

He heard a familiar hissing sound and saw at least ten black hands emerge from behind Damian, their boneless arms writhing in midair for a few moments before darting down and clutching at Dipper’s wrists, his ankles, around his waist, and his legs. Before he could protest, they lifted him out of Damian’s arms and brought him to the bed. He tried to jerk out of them but couldn’t; they criss-crossed themselves all around him and immobilized him.

“Damian, what the fuck?!” he spit out, struggling. He mustered up his strength and glared at the demon who stood above him. “What the hell’re you doing?” Damian’s eyes were glowing in the darkness and Dipper hoped there was no fear in his voice.

Damian laughed his rolling chuckle. “ _ Defacing property,  _ I suppose?” He sat on the end of the bed, casual as you please, while a few extra hands floated about a foot above his head. “When I touched your head earlier, your thoughts practically  _ threw  _ themselves at me. After everything you’ve been through, you can fantasize about  _ me?  _ You’re a little fucked up in the head, aren’t you?”

Dipper stared at him in horror, his heart thumping wildly in his chest. “You saw -”

“I saw  _ everything.  _ You have a very active imagination, Mason.”

The use of his name sent a chill down his spine, and he shivered, struggling against the bonds again. “It’s - it was just a dream, it doesn’t - it doesn’t mean anything!”

“On the contrary, it means quite a few things,” Damian disagreed. “It means you  _ like  _ me. Or at least this body.” He glanced down at his stomach and legs. “Or perhaps you’re just  _ desperate for companionship,  _ who knows?”

“That’s - it doesn’t matter! Why’re you doing this?” Dipper demanded, bristling with anger, but also afraid, but also  _ turned on  _ a little bit, which sent him into even more of a panic.  _ You can’t fucking like this, that’s so fucked up - _

“Well, partially because I  _ can,  _ partially because you’re cute, but mostly because I’m taking something from  _ him,  _ and  _ that  _ is sweet.” Damian stretched and sat back, satisfied. “And I haven’t had sex in a long time,” he added as an afterthought, frowning. “Was it two years? Three?”

Dipper’s head was stinging at the mention of Bill, but the hands that didn’t keep him bound quickly distracted him, one pressing against his mouth, others sliding up his shirt. He reluctantly opened his mouth and three small fingers shoved themselves inside. They didn’t taste like anything, and had a silicone texture, smoother than skin. Two more hands groped him through his shorts and the fingers muffled his unwitting sound, his eyes squeezed shut. His hips automatically jerked up only to discover that he couldn’t move them, he was too tightly bound.

His heart was hammering against his chest,  _ how is this happening  _ raced through his head,  _ how is this real, how the hell is he doing this to me - _

“I’m not in a hurry,” said Damian nonchalantly, getting fully onto the bed and leaning on his hands, watching Dipper closely. “Don’t worry, I’ll get you ready before I fuck you.”

His words only brought the previous night’s fantasies back to Dipper, who clenched his fists tightly in response; his fingers were almost the only thing he could move. “S-stop,” he tried to say around the fingers in his mouth. “Please, Damian, just  _ stop.”  _ The hands grinded hard onto his dick and he punctuated his short sentence with a sharp inhale, grimacing in anguish.

“Why would I want to  _ stop?”  _ Damian asked, shaking his head incredulously. “I’ve barely gotten started.”

Two black hands took off Dipper’s shirt, slipping under the arms that tied his hands behind his head. He turned his head into his shoulder, still with his eyes firmly shut against what was happening. They then roamed down his body, skimming his chest and the outlines of his ribs and the faint lines of muscle on his stomach, stopping at the zipper of his shorts and fumbling with it; apparently Damian’s dexterity with these arms was limited.

He was biting his lip hard to prevent himself from reacting, trying to think about  _ anything  _ else, but Damian was just sitting there  _ watching him,  _ those cold purple eyes on him. He  _ wanted  _ him. That fact stood out bright and loud in Dipper’s mind.

“Really, I’m doing you a favor,” said Damian. “You would have  _ never  _ admitted your attraction without being  _ forced  _ into a situation. And I believe it’s better for us to just be honest with one another.” A black hand brushed across Dipper’s cheek. “Don’t reject your own emotions, Mason. You deserve better than this vicious denial.”

“You’re  _ wrong,”  _ Dipper struggled to say, even as the hands yanked and twisted around to get his shorts off. The ones restricting his legs pulled them up into the air and back, his knees lining up with the bottom of his ribcage. He shut his eyes tightly, burning with embarrassment.  _ Can he tell that I’m lying? Oh, God, I can’t be lying - _

“This is a good look for you,” Damian commented, one corner of his mouth twitching. “You know you couldn’t hide your true feelings forever.”

Dipper couldn’t hold back the cry that escaped his mouth when two of the hands slipped inside his boxers and wrapped their small black fingers around his cock, and then his last layer of clothing was gone, pulled off his legs as they were held in the air, and he fucking  _ whimpered  _ when he felt more hands below, pressing against him. He twitched as he felt something  _ wet  _ on the cool silicone fingers and assumed it was lube, his heart plummeting to his stomach at the touch.

“I wonder if I even  _ need  _ to prep you, considering you’re  _ so  _ used to sex,” said Damian nonchalantly, and Dipper froze.

Prying his tongue from the roof of his mouth, he croaked out, “You know?”

“Of course I know, I’ve had a bit of surveillance in your head ever since the Newport incident, and I was given a few more details recently, in both times I’ve touched your head,” Damian replied, looking satisfied. “I know about your  _ physical  _ relationship with Bill. No wonder he was able to influence you so much, sex is one of the most intimate, personal experiences people can share. You gave your body and mind to him every single time.”

Anguished and horribly, awfully ashamed, Dipper could only try to hide his face in his shoulder. “I didn’t -”

“And the things you  _ said  _ for him! Everything you did just to  _ please  _ him, so desperate for his approval, for his  _ love.”  _ Damian shook his head in disappointment.

On this last word, Dipper mumbled “ _ fuck”  _ as two of the fingers pushed inside of him, then a third with no problem. He only felt the slightest stretch and he cringed at himself. Despite hickeys having disappeared and scratches faded and the bloodiest of bitemarks scabbing over, despite even the removal of the black triangle that used to sit at the small of his back, his body bore Bill’s mark.

“Oh, you’ll hardly need any preparation. It’s like your body was  _ made  _ for this.” Damian heaved himself into a kneeling position. “Still, I wonder how you’ll react with only fingers inside of you.”

The black hands elsewhere on Dipper’s body retreated, leaving him naked and bound tightly, barely able to move and completely exposed to Damian. Breathing heavily, he could feel his face burning with shame, tears starting to form in the corners of his eyes, his teeth clenching tightly. He didn’t want this, he  _ hated  _ this, he hated Damian for saying those things and for treating him this way - but Damian was right. He was too used to it.

Familiar with humiliation and degradation and doing things without his approval. Used to being somewhat forced into things, controlled, ordered around. Used to taking it despite his feelings or any other factor. Not fighting these things because, deep down, he  _ wanted  _ it. He wanted what had been given to him with these things; praise and affection and even obsession. He just wanted to  _ matter.  _ He had wanted to be wanted.

_ So why not want this? _

He wanted to arch his back against the fingers inside of him as they twisted and turned and moved in and out, but the arms held him too tightly. He couldn’t throw his head back and gasp for air, couldn’t jerk his hips forward to meet the black hands, could only attempt to muffle his tiny noises by biting his tongue. He couldn’t stop any of his reactions, couldn’t help the way his body and his mind responded to Damian.

Dipper wasn’t sure how long this lasted. He lost track of time as the black hands only got more aggressive, fucking him deeper and harder and faster, occasionally pulling out only to lube up and push inside of him again. He wanted to move, was desperate to move, to get out and get away, because that was the only logical option, no matter how he felt at that moment. Moans and whimpers ached to free themselves from his throat, but he refused to allow them to further betray himself.

“Is that enough, or do you want something bigger?” Damian asked, amused. Dipper opened his eyes just enough to see that Damian was running his palm over the bulge in his sweats, and he was  _ big,  _ Dipper could just  _ tell,  _ and his heart seemed to lurch forward knowing that Damian was hard because of  _ him.  _ He instinctively kept trying to move, to distract himself from how fucking  _ hard  _ he was, but he was trapped in the aching stasis of Damian’s arms.

“ _ Please,”  _ he finally spat out, his voice choked and broken, “l-let me move,  _ please,  _ let me - move, I can’t - I can’t -”

“You want to  _ move?  _ I’ll let you move.”

The arms acted fast, pulling hard at him and pushing him onto his side, then hauling him onto all fours. He was on his hands and knees, and the hands were spreading his legs, gripping his ankles tightly, looping themselves all around his body again. He still had little freedom, still could barely even move his neck, much less any of his limbs. He heard the bed creak and felt Damian’s weight shift on the bed and he didn’t know what he wanted.

He didn’t know what he wanted even as fingers slid inside of him again, these ones not short and silicone but  _ warm _ , flesh-and-blood, _ Damian’s  _ fingers pressing and prodding and searching. He crooked them only very slightly and Dipper tried in vain to restrain himself from gasping a wretched  _ “fuck, yes”  _ into the air. 

“You could come just like this, couldn’t you?” Damian commented. Dipper felt his hand on his ass, rubbing and caressing. Baring his teeth, he clenched his fists in the sheets and kept his head down, hiding his distress.

He choked out an embarrassingly loud moan when Damian stroked him, humming. “You’re so  _ hard.  _ Can you really be so turned on just by being fucked with my fingers? Bill really did do  _ so much _ to you.” Dipper cringed and stiffened at the name, his forehead throbbing in pain. “And it still hurts to think of him, to be reminded of him. You don’t want to remember how he touched you. Is it anything like how I touch you? How different are he and I?”

Dipper’s head was killing him, a heavy pain in his skull that only worsened. “Don’t - talk - about him,” he mumbled, planting his forehead in the pillows.

“But who else do I compare to? I want you to make the  _ distinction. _ ” Damian curled his fingers further, eliciting another moan that cracked in Dipper’s throat. “ _ I’m  _ the one doing this to you, making you feel this way. I want you to memorize how my skin feels against yours, the sound of my voice, the way your body reacts to me.”

He drew back his hand and smacked Dipper’s ass  _ hard,  _ making him cry out in shock. “Memorize the pain that you love so much.” He pulled his fingers out and laughed quietly at Dipper’s soft, pained noise.

Then the hands adjusted Dipper, turned him around so he faced Damian, and he shut his eyes instinctively. His chest was forced to the ground, his arms buckling, his face ducked into the sheets and the welcome darkness.

Dipper felt Damian’s real hand in his hair, pushing some out of his face and then yanking his head up. “Open your eyes, Mason. Look at me.” His voice was so  _ calm. _

Dipper swallowed and reluctantly opened his eyes about half-way. He opened them fully at the sight directly in front of him; his face was inches away from Damian’s muscular stomach and the bulge in his sweatpants. His mouth dropped open involuntarily and Damian  _ laughed. _

“Look at  _ that.  _ You really  _ are  _ used to this.” Damian touched Dipper’s cheek, fingers under his chin. “Is the taste of him out of your mouth yet?” Damian tugged down his sweats just enough to free his cock, lightly stroking himself, running his other hand through Dipper’s hair again. “In your dream, I forced my cock down your throat and you were  _ happy  _ to gag on it.”

Dipper knew he was staring with his mouth open, was practically asking to be called a whore, but he couldn’t stop. Damian was so  _ hard,  _ his chest and stomach moving with every movement of his hand, and Dipper’s heart jumped against his bones when he saw Damian’s fucking piercings again,  _ why is he so hot??  _ It really wasn’t fair, considering the situation. He should be resisting this more, he knew; he yelled at himself for not putting up as much of a fight as he should be, but  _ fuck. Why am I so fucking weak?  _ he demanded of himself.

Dipper only made one small, muffled protest when Damian guided his cock to his mouth, then closed his eyes and sat still, not fighting when his head was pulled forward. The tears that threatened to fall down his cheeks earlier formed again in the corners of his eyes, but he wasn't sure which pain they were for. Physical or mental. Either or both.

Fires sparked low in his stomach when Damian sighed, his hands on either side of Dipper’s head. “You wanted to move?” Damian said mildly. “Now you can.”

Dipper gave a short nod and tentatively tried to raise his hands; the arms moved with him, still keeping him restrained but allowing his motion as he reached out, trembling, for Damian’s body, his hips, maybe his thighs, he didn’t know, his eyes were shut and he didn’t want to open them again.

His hands found Damian’s hips, hot to the touch, and he dug his fingers in, drawing his head further forward and taking most of Damian’s cock in his mouth. He was already ashamed of how much he liked sucking dick, a fact that Bill had taunted him about many times, but this was _worse,_ it was _Damian_ and his warm hands on his face and his voice and his body, so different, it felt _wrong._

Just then, as if he  _ knew,  _ Damian asked softly, “Does this feel  _ wrong  _ to you, Mason? Nod or shake your head.”

Dipper nodded once, his jaw already starting to ache.

Damian laughed, pulled Dipper’s head closer. “Do you know why that is?”

Dipper didn’t want to know.

“It’s because  _ you were his.  _ You became so used to him that nothing else will ever feel  _ right.  _ Everything is going to feel bad and wrong and awful because you were  _ meant  _ to be  _ his.  _ Your body, your mind rejects anything that isn’t him. He  _ owned  _ you.”

Dipper winced around Damian’s cock, moving faster if only to distract himself from the knives in Damian’s words and the renewed pain in his own head, licking up and down and sucking sloppily in an attempt to make him stop.

It helped to an extent, Damian’s quiet groan told him such, but his deep voice just grew breathier when he continued. “And now, your mind still rejects me, but your body’s easing under my touch.” Dipper felt the silicone hands against his ass again, fingers roaming his body, and the dick in his mouth obstructed his reluctant noise. “He would be so  _ disappointed  _ to see this. So  _ angry  _ to see how easily you cave to another and forget about him.”

Damian yanked Dipper’s head close by his hair and Dipper found his nose pressed against Damian’s stomach, his eyes suddenly wide in shock and  _ all  _ of Damian’s cock in his mouth, down his throat, hot and  _ big  _ and about to make him gag, and he hated it but he  _ liked  _ it, the taste and the pressure on his tongue and  _ everything _ . 

“Did you love him?” Damian asked, keeping Dipper there, though he had a loose grip. “With your souls bound together, with him in your life, with your naive belief in his  _ humanity,  _ did you love him?”

Dipper tried to shake his head and Damian seemed to understand. “No? But did you  _ want  _ to love him? Did you want him to love  _ you?” _

Dipper let out a muffled moan as two black fingers pressed inside of him, and one tear fell down the side of his face as he gave a tiny nod. Damian released his head, letting him pull back, coughing and gasping for breath. 

Seconds later, Dipper was pulled up to his knees, sitting up with the help of the hands, as he was discombobulated and dizzy. He felt Damian’s hands on him, his  _ real  _ hands, on his shoulders and sliding down his arms to his own hands, holding them. Dipper hesitantly opened his eyes as Damian brought one of his hands to his mouth, kissing his knuckle in an oddly  _ sweet  _ gesture.

“The truth hurts you,” Damian murmured into Dipper’s skin, “because you can’t hide from it anymore. Don’t mistake this for hatred.”

Dipper said nothing, did nothing but shiver. Damian moved to hold Dipper’s face in his hands again, examining him in an almost admiring fashion. Dipper met his eyes, indigo glowing bright purple, and found he couldn’t look away.

“Demons can’t love, Mason,” Damian said softly, and kissed him.

It was soft and slow and Dipper was  _ shocked,  _ shocked at Damian’s surprising gentleness after the vicious way he fucked his mouth barely a minute ago. But Damian seemed patient, waiting to kiss Dipper harder until he responded in kind, and then their bodies were pressed together and Dipper's hips jerked forward, Damian  _ finally  _ allowing it, his hands straying to Dipper’s waist and bringing them closer. Dipper tried to set his hands on Damian’s shoulders and the arms let him.

“Have I convinced you?” Damian murmured, his fingernails digging into Dipper’s skin. “Do you want him off of you? Do you want to be  _ free  _ of him? Want to forget all about him, move on?”

Not wanting to break their kiss, break any contact, Dipper mumbled “yeah” and leaned forward, desperately wanting more, hating how  _ weak  _ he was to Damian’s accusations and calm analyses of his psyche, how weak his body really was.

“You’re so desperate for affection.” Damian withdrew, and his black arms took control again, criss-crossing themselves all over Dipper’s body and his limbs.

The hands turned Dipper upside-down again, on his hands and knees, facing away from Damian. His heart raced away inside his trembling chest as he tried to prepare himself for what was coming. He _ didn’t want it.  _ No matter how his body reacted or what Damian said, he didn’t want it.

But his mouth went dry as he thought,  _ Is it because I really  _ do  _ belong to...him? And that’s why I don’t want this?  _ It made him feel sick. 

_ Why don’t I understand my own head anymore? _

And there was despair in his cry when Damian began to push inside of him. His hands curled into the sheets, his whole body tensed up, he’d gone long enough without sex that everything  _ hurt. _

“You’re fine,” Damian said gently, though Dipper swore he heard cruelty somewhere in his velvet tones. “You’re used to this, aren’t you?”

Damian slid in further and Dipper pressed his mouth to the bed to keep from crying out again. Panting, he turned his head to the side and said, “Damian, I d - I don’t - want you to -”

“Still protesting?” Damian made a disapproving sound. “And here I thought I had you convinced.” His black hands grabbed Dipper by his hair and yanked his head up, making a steep arch in his back, and spread his legs further apart. “Well, you’ll enjoy it soon.”

“But I -  _ nnh, ah, fuck,”  _ Dipper cut himself off, his words dissolving into breathless gasps as Damian kept pushing, gripping his ass hard with his flesh-and-blood hands. He mumbled a broken “ _ fuck”  _ under his breath when Damian bottomed out, barely hearing Damian’s own quiet profanity. He felt Damian’s hip bones and the warmth of his stomach against his ass and his eyes nearly rolled back in his head, his hands clawing at the sheets.

_ “Damian, please,”  _ he panted, and even he didn’t know what he was asking for. He swallowed and forced out a  _ “stop.” _

Damian sighed, leaning forward and kissing one of the freckles on Dipper’s back. “That’s really quite  _ annoying.  _ But I know how to shut you up.” His hands moved to Dipper’s waist and he held him tightly, his fingernails sharp in his skin, and he pulled out almost all the way only to slam back in, then began fucking Dipper with no restraint. He was finally a demon again, his sinister eyes glowing and casting purple light on his vicious expression.

Dipper’s heart jumped into his throat as Damian fucked him hard; he could feel  _ all  _ of him, he shivered at the repeating slap as Damian’s hips met his ass, gasped and moaned and garbled nonsense words with every one of Damian’s thrusts. He hated how  _ good  _ it felt, hated how addicted he’d gotten to this rough sex that left him battered and bruised and aching. There was a slow delirium building in his body, flaring and setting fire to his veins, and he wanted to fight, but there was no way that he could.

“D-Dami-an,  _ please,” _ he managed to say, the demon’s hand still fisted in his hair. “You n-need to st-stop,  _ ah, fuck.”  _ Damian had snapped his hips forward particularly roughly and cut off Dipper’s protests.

“That’s what you told him every time,” said Damian, sounding thoughtful, “but you never  _ really  _ wanted him to stop, did you?” Damian’s flesh-and-blood hands ghosted down Dipper’s body, the arch of his back and the curve of his chest into his waist, as his black hands held him steady. He barely moved his hips now, keeping Dipper pressed against him, only slightly rocking them forward. Black hands dug their little fingers into Dipper’s waist, thighs, torso. Damian grabbed Dipper’s ass and spread him further, making a contented sound as he continued to grind into him.

Dipper was, to his dismay and horror, quickly becoming a  _ mess,  _ he was breathing too fast and too heavily and he was backing up against Damian as his body demanded  _ more.  _ He felt boneless, like he was melting, even as Damian pulled out and began fucking him brutally once again. Damian shoved him to the bed, his chest on the mattress and his ass in the air, and Dipper could feel  _ all of it,  _ every small movement and push and pull.

“Still want me to stop?” Damian said softly, his mouth pressed against Dipper’s back, his voice sending vibrations up his spine, and Dipper automatically arched his back sharply, nearly breaking something and not caring.

“ _ Yes,”  _ he choked out, because he had to. “Please, Damian,  _ stop.” _

Damian sighed. “That’s not what your body is saying.” And Dipper slumped nearly lifeless to the bed when Damian wrapped his hand around his cock, his real hand, and stroked him quickly, impatiently.

Black hands forced Dipper’s head to the side so Damian could hear his reactions, his loud noises, his incomprehensible words, as he continued fucking him, only going faster and harder, everything  _ hurt  _ but it was just so  _ good.  _ Damian was so big that he hit  _ everything,  _ every tiny sensitive spot that made Dipper cry out in some horrific combination of pain and ecstasy that left him nearly sobbing.

“If you didn’t want this, you’d be fighting,” said Damian, his voice becoming a low growl as he raked his fingernails down Dipper’s side and half-smiled at the accompanying sound. “I don’t see you trying to escape.”

His body rocking forward and back with every movement, Dipper mumbled, “I c - I  _ can’t,”  _ interrupting his own protests with a loud moan as Damian leaned forward and sunk his teeth into his shoulder, nearly drawing blood and leaving a pink-red bitemark. “Y-you’re too -  _ ah - d-deep,  _ I can’t -  _ nnh, fuck -” _

“I’m too  _ deep?”  _ Damian snapped his hips forward and buried his cock inside Dipper, keeping a tight grip on his thighs, then leaned back and watched, satisfied, his eyes half-closed, as Dipper did his absolute best to move backwards and spread his legs and take as much of Damian’s cock as he possibly could.

Damian dragged his fingers down Dipper’s spine and rested his hand on his ass. “It looks more like I’m not deep  _ enough  _ for you, slut.”

Dipper stifled his pathetic moan by turning his face into the pillow, but the black hands yanked his head back on its side seconds later. “I’m -  _ nnh,  _ I’m not a s-slut, don’t -”

Damian leaned forward again, his fingernails digging into Dipper’s waist, and murmured, “Then why’re you so good at taking my dick up your tight little ass?” Dipper bit his lip hard to hide another embarrassing sound. “Why’re you so  _ used  _ to it? I can see you spreading your legs for me, I can see how much you want it, how much you love getting fucked so hard you  _ scream.”  _ His voice was as calm and controlled as ever and he started to roll his hips forward again as Dipper made tiny noises of objection against his words, tears returning to his eyes. “You  _ love  _ this, Mason. Don’t feel this need to conserve your  _ pride,  _ you’re already naked and tied up beneath me. You have nothing to lose by admitting this to me.”

Dipper struggled to keep up his defiant silence as Damian hummed and fucked into him leisurely, patiently, but  _ so good.  _ He really did love this, no matter how much he hated himself for it.

“F- _ fine,  _ I l-love this,  _ please,  _ Damian, f-fuck me harder,” he said wretchedly, his hands balled into tight fists and his eyes squeezed shut. “Please, I want - I want it -”

_“There_ you go,” Damian said gleefully. Dipper could hear the smirk in his voice. “Good boy, Mason.”

Dipper gritted his teeth as his whole body shook; he  _ hated  _ how much he loved Damian praising him. 

Damian sped up instantly, breathing harshly and swearing and muttering under his breath, some quiet words of affection. Dipper’s answering gasp was louder and more pitiful than he had wanted, but he was beyond shame and he no longer tried to hold back the noises that stumbled unwillingly from his mouth.

“Say my name,” Damian was whispering into his ear, bent forward and bottomed out inside of him. “Who’s fucking you, Mason?”

“D- _ Damian,  _ fuck, fuck me,” Dipper mumbled breathlessly. “ _ Nnnh,  _ Damian,  _ Damian, please,  _ fuck me harder -  _ ah!” _

He interrupted himself with a yelp as the black hands twisted him around, lifting him  _ into the air,  _ as apparently they could actually  _ do  _ that. Damian reclined, lying down and putting his hands behind his head. Dipper couldn’t help but stare at him, at his heaving stomach and chest and how his slicked-back hair was getting all over the place and how the dim light reflected on his piercings. He was just as stunning as Bill was - but Dipper refused to think about that.

_ Focus on  _ this _ demon,  _ he told himself, no matter how reluctantly.  _ Focus only on him. Lose yourself with him.  _ He felt a wrenching feeling somewhere inside his chest.  _ Distract yourself. Let him distract you. _

The hands set him down kneeling over Damian’s stomach, keeping his legs spread as another pair of hands guided Damian’s cock to his hole. He choked out a shuddering gasp when he was shoved down, he was so  _ full,  _ his eyes rolling back in his head and his mouth dropping open.

Damian’s real hands grabbed at his ass, grinding him down and forward, and he groaned loudly, his voice cracking. He desperately moved up and down, forward and back, wanted  _ more  _ of Damian, more and more, and he loved the way Damian’s chest heaved and how roughly he grabbed at his ass, he wanted bruises, he  _ wanted  _ Damian’s mark on him -

“ _ Ah,  _ you’re so good,” Damian huffed, his voice still annoyingly calm. His hands shifted to Dipper’s waist to help him bounce on his cock and Dipper only got louder,  _ embarrassingly  _ loud, he no longer cared, couldn’t fight and wouldn’t try.

“D-damian,  _ fuck,  _ I’m -  _ ah,  _ I’m g -”

“No, you’re not.” Dipper let out a startled, broken shout as Damian gripped him tightly and slammed him down. “You’re not coming until I say you can.”

Dipper swallowed and nodded, leaning forward and resting his hands on Damian’s stomach as he tentatively started to move again, encouraged by Damian’s hold around his waist and the demon’s short huffs of breath, his soft words of praise. “Good boy,” he murmured, eliciting another quiet whine. “Taking my cock so well.”

The black hands were still bound tightly around Dipper, restricting almost all of his movement but allowing him to roll his hips, two of them wrapping around his throat and tightening, others pulling him back by his hair and grabbing at his arms and slipping into his open mouth. He was writhing as violently as the hands would let him, gasping and moaning Damian’s name around the fingers in his mouth, and Damian gave him what he wanted, shoved him down harder and faster, answering his pleas.

It was a good while later that the hands pulled Dipper off of Damian, setting him down on his knees once again, his upper body slumped forward against the bed. He could hardly breathe, he was shaking all over, senseless words and noises stumbling out of his mouth. He didn’t resist when two of the arms bound his wrists together behind his back, even  _ liking  _ the pressure of the silicone against his skin, and  _ keened  _ when he felt Damian’s cock against his ass, so slick and hot as he rubbed against him, he wanted it  _ so badly. _

“Beg, slut,” Damian said, sounding almost  _ bored _ , like he already knew what was coming, what Dipper would say. 

It took serious effort for Dipper to form a coherent sentence. “P- _ please,  _ Damian, I’m - I - please -  _ please  _ fuck me, I w-want it,  _ I want it,”  _ he gasped out, trying to push his hips back, “I want - I want your cock, Damian,  _ please, Damian -” _

“Who do you belong to?”

“You,” Dipper said automatically, the response ready on his tongue. He had said it  _ so many times,  _ so many times in reply to Bill’s demands of possession, and it was only second nature to say it now, despite the fact that it was a different demon growling those familiar words. “You,  _ you, _ Damian -”

“Wrong.” The word was accompanied with another hard slap to his ass and he cried out in shock and pain, his legs trembling and twitching.

He felt Damian lean over him, could feel his body heat and smell his cologne, and he closed his eyes,  _ I want him inside of me, I want him, I want him.  _

“You don’t belong to  _ anyone,  _ Mason,” Damian said calmly, considering he was almost ridiculously hard and slowly rubbing his cock down Dipper’s ass. “ _ No one  _ is in control of you now. It’s just you.”

And rather than feeling some sense of  _ relief,  _ of freedom, Dipper simply felt  _ lost.  _ There was  _ no one.  _ No one watching him, giving him attention, protecting him, making sure he did things  _ right.  _ No one.

“P-please, fuck me, Damian,” he mumbled, refusing to acknowledge his despair, arching his back and pushing himself back against the demon as much as he could, considering the arms wrapped all around his body.

“Such a whore,” Damian murmured, grabbing at Dipper’s ass before sliding inside of him again, smiling at how loudly Dipper practically _screamed,_ so pathetically desperate for Damian moving inside of him again, for him to _hold_ him and touch him everywhere and fuck him open.

“Want to - want to be y-yours,” Dipper panted, his body rocking forward with each of Damian's thrusts. He couldn't control what he said anymore, could only hope his shameless mouth wouldn't let anything too awful out. “M-make me yours, D-Damian,  _ please _ -”

“Why do you want to belong to someone so much?” Damian asked softly, slowing down. “How much do you doubt yourself? Why can't you believe in yourself and your decisions without somebody telling you if they're right or wrong?”

More tears stung Dipper’s eyes and he choked out a sob. “S-stop -”

“Where did your confidence go, your inner strength? Why do you have to rely on others for validation when you've proven yourself over and over again by your own means? And  _ why  _ do you like pain so much?” Damian raked his fingernails down Dipper’s back before digging them into his waist again. “I don't understand you, Mason. You're such an enigma to me. So ignorant of your own accomplishments and good traits.”

Dipper’s face burned with shame and he buried his face in the sheets, grimacing and gritting his teeth together. Damian knew  _ so much  _ about him, whether it was from his former presence in his head or the few times he had breached his subconscious or just because he was good at understanding people, he could see all of his weaknesses and flaws and everything that he hated about himself.

And it made everything  _ so much better,  _ every cruel silken word out of Damian’s mouth and his touches, whether rough or gentle, and the way they moved together, the fucked up beauty of it all.

Damian had said earlier that it was the  _ truth,  _ not hatred, and he understood. He  _ did  _ have low self-esteem and grew dependent on others for validation of his successes. And Damian recognized that he  _ had  _ successes.

If anything, he liked him.

Damian began to speed up again, and Dipper loved every brief sound of skin on skin and the flood of heat that threatened to spill over, his moans muffled by the sheets, loved the profanity that Damian muttered under his breath as he fucked him.

“ _ Please, Damian,”  _ he panted out, barely audible. “Please, fuck - fuck me,  _ fuck me,  _ fuck me harder, I want -”

“ _ What  _ do you want?” Damian asked roughly, his breath coming in short huffs.

“Wanna - s-see you,” Dipper mumbled, clenching his fists behind his back, struggling to turn his head so his voice would be heard.

This made Damian burst into breathless laughter. “You want to  _ see  _ me? You want to see my face while I fuck you? Why?”

Dipper struggled, trying to turn himself over, but the arms refused to budge, and Damian kept fucking him, preventing any further movement. “Please,” he said, his voice cracking and jumping due to his movement, “turn me around -”

“I’m not turning you around until you tell me  _ why  _ you want to see me,” Damian replied, his voice soft and taunting.

Dipper swallowed and managed to say, “I l - I  _ like _ y-you, the way you look, I w-want to see you, want to know that - that this is real, that you - that you want me,  _ fuck, Damian, please.” _

Damian laughed once again, then pulled out and withdrew, the arms loosening around Dipper to allow him to move. “So you really  _ are  _ attracted to me. You  _ want  _ me to want you. That’s adorable.”

Dipper bit his lip; Damian  _ was  _ hot, and he  _ did  _ want to see that he wanted him, that all was true, but it  _ shouldn’t be.  _ Damian had fucking  _ forced  _ himself upon him and said so many terrible things and mistreated him but -

Then Dipper was on his back, the black hands pinning his arms down, pulling his legs up and back, holding him in place, and he opened his eyes. Damian sat above him, his chest moving with his breathing, pushing his messy hair out of his face. Dipper stared at him for a few short seconds as he adjusted his position, then lowered his half-closed gaze to his own chest when Damian kneeled over him. He could almost feel his shadow, the glow of his eyes.

“Well? You wanted to look at me so badly,  _ look at me,  _ Mason.” Dipper felt Damian’s hand on his cheek, warm and soft against his skin, and he tilted his head back to meet Damian’s eyes. There was no possessiveness there, none of the yellow fire he was so familiar with; Damian’s purple eyes were cold as ice. But that ice seemed to melt as he looked at Dipper, his expression softening. The great hole in Dipper’s head stung.

Damian’s hand combed through Dipper’s hair, some of his bangs slightly damp with sweat, and sighed as he fucked into him and started to move again, forcing a strangled noise from Dipper’s throat.

“You really are just  _ so _ adorable, Mason,” Damian murmured, and leaned down to kiss Dipper, who responded almost  _ violently,  _ straining to wrap his arms around Damian’s neck as they kissed, both of Damian’s hands on Dipper’s cheeks. There was some air of  _ passion  _ that wasn’t there before, passion in the way Damian was kissing him, the slowness of his movements, everything languid and deep and hazy. Dipper kissed Damian recklessly, greedily, he didn’t want this to end, he wanted to forget about his torment, the horrible pain in his head, and wanted to be wanted.

The demon started to speed up and Dipper had to withdraw to take a deep, shuddering breath, little sounds escaping his mouth again, and so Damian focused his attention on Dipper’s neck. He said something that Dipper didn’t really catch, something like  _ a blank canvas,  _ and sucked a dark maroon hickey into the skin beneath Dipper’s ear as he continued. Dipper could do nothing but gasp and moan with every thrust, mumble poorly constructed words and sentences, whimper Damian’s name. This only served to encourage Damian as he littered Dipper’s shoulders and neck with obvious bitemarks and dark hickeys, at one point growling  _ hell, Mason,  _ and fucking him faster in response to the pathetic answering noise.

_ “Fuck,  _ Damian,  _ please,  _ I’m - I -  _ fuck,”  _ Dipper panted out, his voice rising and falling with his breathing, his arms turning white as he tried in vain to free them from the black hands. “I w - I want to -”

“When I let you,” Damian reminded him, his voice a low hum against Dipper’s neck. Dipper felt him smile when he said, “Do you want to  _ hold  _ me? Be closer to me?”

“Y- _ yes,”  _ Dipper managed to say, more of a moan than a stuttered word, and, to his utmost relief, the black hands released his own. As if of their own will, his arms wrapped around Damian’s shoulders and he dug his fingers into his back, he could feel muscle and bone, could feel so much  _ heat. _

In response, Damian held Dipper’s face in his hands again and kissed him roughly, biting at his lip. Dipper’s grip only tightened and they were pulled closely together,  _ so close _ , their chests almost touching and their hips pressed together and Damian’s thumbs tracing small circles on Dipper’s cheekbones as he kept fucking him, didn’t stop moving.

Dipper’s pleas for further closeness were gasped senselessly against Damian’s mouth and Damian  _ answered.  _ Black hands held his hips and legs still as Damian barely moved inside of him, Damian sighing heavily as he kissed Dipper’s neck and just  _ grinded,  _ nudging his hips forward ever so slightly at an angle that only made Dipper louder, his desperate cries and moans more frenzied and unintelligible. He was completely falling apart under Damian’s touch, his last few hints of rationale and resolve crumbling and disappearing as he begged for more, begged for Damian’s cock, begged to be _ his - _

“You gonna come for me, Mason?” Damian said softly, his voice a low hum against Dipper’s skin. He pulled away to look down at the other man with a slight smile on his face and his eyes narrowed into slits. “Don’t run out of breath.”

Dipper was able to shut himself up for a few seconds to nod, staring at Damian with his head in a daze and his expression almost  _ reverent.  _ “Yeah,  _ ah -  _ I’m - _ yes,” _ he breathed, his hands reaching for Damian, fingers brushing his shoulders. “Please, Damian, l-let me come,  _ please -” _

“Mm, you can come when I come inside of you,” Damian murmured into Dipper’s shoulder, and Dipper’s entire body seized up, his legs  _ vibrating,  _ his arms suddenly wrapped desperately around Damian’s shoulders, and Damian  _ laughed.  _ “I suppose you like that idea. You’re a complete  _ mess,  _ Mason. I never thought I could turn you into this.”

Dipper nodded dumbly, his mouth half open as he struggled for air. “Want it,” he mumbled, his mouth against Damian’s collarbone, “please, Damian, I want it, I want -”

Damian exhaled loudly and leaned back. His chest was moving with his breathing and hair was falling all over his face. His hands dug into the sheets by Dipper’s head, nearly tearing into them. Dizzy and delirious as he was, Dipper was still sober enough to appreciate the demon’s appearance, the soft curves of his muscles and the shade of his skin,  _ everything. _

He must have been staring, because Damian started laughing, low and controlled. “You really do have a little  _ crush  _ on me, don’t you? Cute.”

Dipper swallowed and looked away, his arms falling back to the bed. He choked out a soft sound when Damian started stroking him, humming as he did so, and adjusted the position of his hips. Dipper moaned unwittingly again with the shift, Damian’s cock moving inside of him, his hands clenching into fists. The position  _ hurt  _ a little _ ;  _ more of his lower back was now raised into the air and his head was shoved down, but then Damian was moving again and it didn’t matter, nothing mattered but the steady burn of his cock inside him and the slap of skin on skin as Damian fucked into him.

Damian was starting to tire, breathing through his mouth, but he just got faster, licking his lips and digging his fingers tightly into Dipper’s legs. Black hands continued to keep Dipper held down, restraining his arms again and holding his legs up. He could hardly move and he  _ loved  _ it, loved the silicone biting into his skin, loved being immobile.

Out of nowhere, two hands wrapped around his throat and pressed  _ hard,  _ he couldn’t  _ breathe,  _ and he stared at Damian in shock, his mouth half open.

Damian gave a  _ huff  _ of laughter. “What? I know he’s choked you before,” he said rather tightly as the movements of his hips grew more and more erratic. “You -  _ ah,  _ I know you like it,  _ little tree.” _

Dipper felt his face flush with embarrassment, and he tried to turn his head, but found he was unable to. He bit his lip hard as his mind stung with pain from the nickname, but the pit of his stomach was burning and Damian was _choking him_ and it was so good, so _good_ that it didn’t matter, he just wanted _Damian -_

“ _ Fuck,  _ I’m gonna come,” Damian growled, his voice husky and almost grating. “Then - then you can, fuck -” He was snapping his hips forward rougher, faster, his fingernails were close to drawing blood from Dipper’s thighs, he was so close and it was  _ gorgeous,  _ his heaving chest and sharp teeth bared in exertion and the tenseness in his arm muscles, and Dipper’s eyes couldn’t help but trail down his toned stomach to where part of his cock was visible as he fucked him.

“Gonna - fill you up, fuck,  _ shit,”  _ Damian swore, struggling to breathe, “ _ ah,  _ fuck -”

Dipper felt it when Damian came, felt all of his muscles tighten and the final few senseless movements of his hips, and his own eyes fluttered closed, his head and neck limp against the bed. Even the black hands grew weaker; the bonds around his body briefly loosened as Damian settled down, his breathing harsh and loud.

“Now, come for me, Mason,” he murmured, smiling faintly, his hips jerking forward once, twice more. Two more hands hovered down to Dipper’s cock and stroked him too gently, not nearly as fast and rough as he wanted. The hands on his throat pressed down harder,  _ harder,  _ there were spots at the edge of his vision -

“ _ Please,”  _ Dipper managed to choke out, barely a whisper. “ _ Please -” _

Two hands released his throat just as the other two squeezed his cock and the molten fire in his stomach roared and he could feel himself gasp Damian’s name as he came, his toes curling in midair and his hands gripping the sheets and his back arching and his head thrown backwards. His mind was full of hot delirium, his whole body hummed with ecstasy, and he was  _ smiling. _

Eventually, when their breathing had settled, Damian released Dipper’s legs and the rest of the arms unwound themselves from around his body, floating by Damian’s head. The demon groaned quietly as he pulled out, and skimmed his hand down Dipper’s chest and stomach to between his legs. He pressed a finger inside him and Dipper made the softest sound in response, too weak and content to object.

“ _ Mm.  _ So hot.” Damian’s voice was a slow rumble in the dark of the room. “Such a cute little sub, aren’t you?” A black hand brushed Dipper’s forehead and Damian laughed once. “Oh, your head’s a  _ mess.  _ You  _ loved  _ that. I’m flattered that I met your standards - surpassed them, maybe.”

Dipper didn’t have the strength to reply. He had been tired before Damian had tied him up, and now he was  _ exhausted,  _ seconds away from sleep.

“Do you want to stay here?” Damian asked gently, resting a hand on Dipper’s stomach. “I can move you to your bed if you’d prefer.”

Dipper jerked his head to one side and mumbled “Stay.” It was more of an order than a response.

The sheets rustled as Damian pushed their clothes off of the bed and tugged the covers out from under Dipper. Dipper opened his eyes slightly to see Damian clean him up with a fist of tissues, tensing up slightly when he touched his sensitive hole, before getting into bed and pulling the sheets over them both.

To Dipper’s surprise, Damian wrapped an arm around his middle and brought them together, brushing hair out of his forehead and kissing his birthmark. “Goodnight, Mason,” he murmured, and Dipper shivered at Damian’s lips brushing his skin.

Reluctantly, with a sting of guilt, Dipper rested his face against Damian’s chest and turned his head into darkness. Damian’s flesh-and-blood hands roamed his body and held him in a chaste embrace as he drifted into a hazy sleep.

 

Dipper awoke the next morning suddenly aware of the pain wracking his body. His ass was  _ killing  _ him, he could feel bruises on his neck, and his wrists still stung where the black arms had wrapped around them. Eventually, when he could handle movement, he struggled into a half-sitting position and rubbed his eyes.

A glance to his left told him that Damian had already gotten up. To his right, on the bedside table, was a glass of water, some pills, and a note.

_ Mason,  _ it read,  _ I’ve gone out for groceries. I should be back by noon or one. I’m sure you’re sore, so take some Ibuprofen and do whatever you’d like. If you want to be alone today, I understand. Damian. _

He didn’t know what he wanted, he thought as he swallowed the pills down with the water. His feelings about the night before swam aimlessly through his mind and gave him no answer. He was angry, upset, guilty, vengeful, pleased, content, and he wanted  _ more,  _ he wanted Damian. He had subconsciously allowed the demon to take Bill’s place in his head, casting out his former soulmate in an act of defiance.

_ Damian had said things, but nothing more awful than stuff Bill’s said _ , Dipper thought, ignoring the brief flare of pain in his head.  _ Wasn’t all that different, really. He didn’t even make me say things, he just...did what he wanted.  _ He shivered; he  _ really  _ shouldn’t want that.

He threw the covers off of him and got out of bed, pulling on the first pair of sweatpants that he saw, which were probably Damian’s, as they were a size up. Looking at himself in the fullbody mirror, he stepped back in shock.

He was  _ covered  _ in marks. Dark bruises stood out at his waist, hips, and neck; there were rings of red around his wrists and stomach; hickeys and bitemarks mottled his neck, shoulders, and chest; and his hair was a total mess. One look at him by anyone would give away what he had done, what he had succumbed to. It was so painfully obvious that he had given himself to Damian.

And yet Damian didn’t call him  _ his.  _ The kind of possession that Dipper knew wasn’t there, wasn’t spit from Damian’s mouth as he fucked him, wasn’t pressed into his lips when he kissed him. 

But it was okay. It was fine. He wasn’t Bill. And he didn’t have to be.

Somewhat ashamed by his appearance, Dipper grabbed the nearest shirt and threw it on. It, too, was a size up, and draped slightly from his shoulders and arms. It was a faded gray shirt from a Bruce Springsteen concert in 1983.

He shuffled out of Damian’s room and to the living room. It was another beautiful day, the blue sky spotted with clouds and the house bathed in sunlight. The radio hooked up to the surround sound was on, quiet modern electronica playing, and Dipper felt  _ safe,  _ felt comfortable. The clock read 12:13, and Damian hadn’t yet returned, so Dipper headed to the couch and laid on his side, turning the TV on. He switched over to the Xbox and grabbed for the controller.

Damian didn’t get back for another ten or fifteen minutes, announced by the opening and closing of the door. Dipper’s heart jumped against his ribcage and he tried to keep himself calm.

Damian came into the dining room and glanced over. “Oh, you’re awake. Good morning...er, afternoon. Are you hungry?”

“Bit,” Dipper replied a few seconds later, his heart still thumping rapidly. “Yeah.”

“Alright, I’ll put these away and fix you something.”

Dipper sat up straight to look over the back of the couch and watch Damian in the kitchen as he opened the fridge and set a carton of milk, a bag of greens, and some cheese inside. He was wearing a denim button-down shirt over khaki shorts with his hair slicked back from his face, and Dipper swore he’d never been more attracted to him.

After a period of silence during which Damian cooked omelettes and Dipper continued to play video games, they stood across from the table from each other, and Dipper forced himself to look at Damian. Their eyes met and he felt a thousand times weaker.

“Are you okay?” Damian asked, sounding genuinely concerned. “I’m sure you’re sore.”

Dipper nodded. “Yeah, I’m…’m fine. Pills are helping, I think. I -” He stopped himself.

Damian walked around the table and stepped closer to him. Dipper almost automatically leaned into him, resting his face against Damian’s chest and setting his hands on his stomach. The heady scent of the demon’s cologne only added to recalling the sensations of the night before.

Damian made a slight noise in surprise. “What -”

“You,” Dipper mumbled, clutching at his shirt, “I can’t - I don’t want it to stop, you - you and me.” It was his final  _ fuck you  _ to Bill’s remaining presence in his head as his mouth brushed the non-clothed part of Damian’s chest. This was his choice. “And you want to, right?”

Damian was quiet for a moment, but then he laughed, wrapping his arms around Dipper’s middle, setting his hands on his bruised hips and the small of his back. He ducked his head into Dipper’s forehead and murmured, “I’ve  _ been  _ wanting to for some time now. I’m surprised you didn’t pick up on it. And you aren’t mad at me?”

“‘M a little mad,” Dipper admitted. “I wish you’d - been nicer. Convincing. Not as forceful.”

“Mm. Seems as though you  _ liked  _ me being forceful.” Damian kissed Dipper’s forehead, his lips lingering on his skin.

Dipper felt himself blush and hoped it wasn’t obvious. “Sometimes, yeah, but that just...it was too much.”

“I’ll check and see what you want next time, then. I  _ am  _ sorry. I just…” The demon shrugged. “I knew what I wanted, and I knew that you wanted it too, but that you would  _ never  _ admit it to me, or even yourself. I figured I’d save us a few awkward weeks of sexual tension. And maybe a relationship of this nature could wipe Bill’s influence out of your head, which is what you want, right?”

Dipper nodded; he felt a flare of victory within him. 

After a few moments of silence, Dipper asked, “Have you ever - I mean, I - I’ve thought about you,” he mumbled, keeping his eyes firmly on Damian’s chest. “But have you…”

“Of course I have. You think I haven’t done my best to picture you beneath me, your hands grabbing at the sheets as you beg for me?” Damian’s brief laugh was somewhat tight. “There’s little else I  _ do  _ think of when I get off.”

The image of Damian with his shirt pushed up to his chest and the button of his pants undone as he jerked himself off, biting his lip as he closed his eyes and thought, popped up in Dipper’s head and he exhaled a tiny sound, felt himself nudge his hips forward against Damian’s own - 

“Okay, I can reheat the food,” Damian managed to say before he was pulling Dipper’s head away from his chest and kissing him, his free hand sliding past the band of the sweatpants he wore. Dipper let out a soft whine as he curled his arms under Damian’s shoulders and clutched handfuls of his shirt, rubbing himself against Damian’s hip as he kissed back, their mouths moving together urgently and passionately, so  _ hot. _

“There’s - more we can do,” Dipper said against Damian’s mouth. “Please, don’t - don’t let go of me.”

Damian wrapped an arm around Dipper’s middle, and his other hand grabbed at his ass. “I won’t, Mason,” he murmured in reply before kissing Dipper again. “I’ll kiss you and hold you and do whatever else you’d like.  _ Fuck,  _ I want you,” he groaned into the kiss. Dipper swore he could feel Damian getting hard, and his own heart seemed to fall into the pit of his stomach. “I really want you.”

And Dipper knew he was free of Bill’s influence, was truly free, when he pulled away only for the brief seconds it took to say, “I want you too.”  
  



	6. Everything Stays

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A year passes. Some things change, some things stay the same, but everything moves forward.
> 
> Summer, 2023.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy birthday dm! i can't believe its been a year since i've finished it and two years since i first started working on it. i'm in a completely different place now, for better and for worse, and i hope my fans are doing well in their own lives. i've since distanced myself from the billdip fandom for a multitude of reasons, but dm and its universe will always mean the world to me and the fact that people are still reading and loving it makes me so happy.
> 
> i hope yall enjoy this new oneshot.

_(June, 2023)_

_(Let's go in the garden_

_You'll find something waiting_

_Right there where you left it_

_Lying upside down)_

 

“Wake up, Bill.”

A loud groan came from the other side of the bed, where a large lump of sheets shifted.

Dipper reached over and punched his bedmate. “I said, _wake up,_ we’re doing things today.”

The sheets shifted again and a tuft of blond hair stuck out. “But I don’t _want -”_

“I don’t care what you want, _get up,_ and quit complaining.” Dipper swung his legs over the side of the bed and got to his feet, stretching. “We talked about this last week, we talked about it last month, last _year -”_

“I know, I know,” Bill grumbled, finally sitting up. His hair was sticking in every direction and he wore a disgruntled expression and nothing else. “Doesn’t mean I have to _like_ it.”

He was promptly hit with a shirt and a “Get dressed.”

“Alright, alright.” Instead, Bill watched Dipper change with a contented look on his face, watched him fumbling in his drawer for clean boxers and then hunting around for a pair of shorts and a shirt. When Dipper turned back to his direction, he hurriedly pulled the shirt on over his head.

There was a banging on the door. “ _Guys!_ Are you up yet?” Mabel called.

“Yeah, _finally,”_ Dipper replied, shooting another glare at Bill, who held up his hands in mock surrender. “We’ll be out in a bit.”

“Okay!” The wooden floor creaked as Mabel left, and Dipper could vaguely hear her giggle.

He sighed loudly. It had been a year, and Mabel still occasionally teased him about his and Bill’s relationship.

 _Relationship._ It was a weird concept, but it was impossible to deny that they were in one. No longer tiptoeing on the edges, or taking a few careful steps past the borders, but straight-up vaulting over them and sprinting inside. It was still insanely weird, and Dipper still considered Bill the most annoying prick in the multiverse, but he loved him.

They didn’t say it out loud much. Hardly ever, in fact. They had said it exactly five times since Bill had first told Dipper on Christmas Eve.

Dipper said it after laughing himself breathless when Bill, scared by the Roomba, ran outside at 3 in the morning screaming bloody murder back in January.

They concluded that Valentine’s Day counted as _twice,_ considering how messy and confusing the whole ordeal was.

A few months back, when they were completely wasted during Pacifica’s birthday party, they had managed to say it while kissing each other in an upstairs closet, unable to wait until they got home to demonstrate the extent of their feelings.

Hesitant and uncomfortable as he was, Bill said it rather awkwardly after Dipper woke up from a dream involving Bill as his previous tyrannical self and clung to him, desperately needing a real reminder that _this_ Bill was the real one, this _half-human_ one who had gone through so much with him.

That was the last time it had been said, back in early June. It was around the date when, one year ago, Bill got his human body and the two men bound their souls together.

 _They_ didn’t, but _Mabel_ thought hard and long about which date should be considered their “anniversary” - the first soul-binding ritual, or the second. Eventually, after a lot of internal debate, she decided for them that their anniversary was August 22nd, the day of the second ritual, because it was done “for the right reasons,” as she put it.

It was about two months to that day. That thought crossed Dipper’s mind as he absentmindedly watched Bill fix his hair into something decent. He always hated Bill for having hair that was easy to manage, considering his own became a rat’s nest so easily.

“You ready?” he asked as Bill approached the door, looking harried.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Bill replied grimly, and he reached for Dipper’s hand.

Dipper snorted but took Bill’s hand in his own. “It’s not a funeral procession.”

“I know, I know, but you’ve been so _weird_ about this, it’s made me nervous.”

“It’s only because I want you to act _normal._ Do you remember the things _not_ to say?”

Bill sighed. “Yes.”

“Do you have your backstory down?”

“Yes.”

“Where were you born?”

“LA,” Bill replied.

“When did you move to Portland?”

“End of 5th grade.”

“What are your parent’s names?”

“Elijah and Jennifer.”

“What’s _your_ name?”

“William Cesar.”

“Where did you go to college?”

“Portland State.”

“Where did you go to high school?”

Bill stopped halfway down the stairs, his eyes wide.

Dipper stopped with him. “High school?” he prompted again.

Bill bit his lip and squeezed his eyes shut. “High school…”

“Come on, Bill, we practiced this.”

“Okay, _why_ would your parents ask where I went to _high school_ in a city they’ve been to _once?”_ Bill demanded, huffing as he hurried down the rest of the stairs.

Mabel glanced up at them as they arrived. “That _does_ kinda seem like too much, in your defense. Wilson High School, B-T-dubs.”

“Right, _Wilson._ ”

“Just remember it as a president,” Dipper suggested as they both sat down on the sofa.

Bill gave him an annoyed look. “In your _highly extensive_ research of the high schools of Portland, Oregon, did you happen to notice that _most_ of them are named after presidents?”

“...right.”

Mabel jumped into quizzing Bill. “What’s your birthday?”

“June 6th, 1999.”

“Nationality?”

“...American?”

“No, like, parent’s nationality,” said Dipper. “Like where you came from.”

“Did we decide that?” asked Mabel, frowning. “Did we forget to invent that?? Oh _shoot -”_

“ _Relax,_ Mabes.” Dipper put a hand on her shoulder and looked at Bill. “Hm. Let’s make you...English, German, and French, how’s that?”

“I’m not gonna remember that,” Bill replied.

He had barely finished his sentence before the computer in front of them burbled and beeped with the sound of an incoming video call.

“That’s Mom! Okay, places!” Everyone got into appropriate seating positions, Mabel next to Dipper next to Bill, with Bill keeping his hands where everyone could see them.

Mabel leaned forward and accepted the call, and the loading screen popped up for a moment before the video loaded and they could see their mom and dad.

“Hey Mom n’ Dad!” said Mabel before anyone else could, beaming into the webcam. “What’s up?”

“Would you believe there’s a _thunderstorm_ going on right now?” came the tinny voice of their mother as she turned around and looked out a window that was vaguely visible behind the couple. “It’s a real mess out there. But it’s so good to see you!”

“Good to see you too,” Dipper replied. “So, Mom -”

“And who’s - is that Bill?” The twins’ mom pointed rather unnecessarily at the screen.

Bill waved. “Hi, Mrs. Pines, Mr. Pines. Er, nice to meet you.” The headspace was whirling with an odd kind of anxious hilarity.

“And you too! Mason, how come we haven’t met him yet?” she accused.

Dipper gave a helpless shrug. “We haven’t video-called in a while? I don’t know, Mom, but...here he is. We, er, thought you’d want to see him.”

“Well of course, we know how... _close_ you two are,” said the twins’ dad, his eyes darting away in the middle of the sentence.

 _This is all because of you and your stupid Facebook posts,_ Dipper thought irritably. _Stop putting up pictures of us doing...I dunno, couple shit._

 _Sorry, I like embarrassing you._ “Actually, Mr. Pines, we, er -” Bill glanced at Dipper. _Are we gonna do this now?_

Dipper nodded, grimacing. _Might as well get it over with._ “Uh, Mom, Dad...me and Bill are dating.”

There were a few tense moments of silence before _both_ of their parents laughed. “ _Figures._ We wondered if there was something going on between you two,” said their mom, who was smiling - _good sign,_ Dipper thought, relieved. “I’m glad we found out from you and not from a Facebook status.”

“Yeah, I, um, wanted to, yeah. Do this. But - okay, Mom, Dad, _please_ don’t ask -”

“So, Bill, you lived in Portland, right?” asked their dad, sitting back in his chair.

Dipper dragged a hand through his hair in frustration. “I was gonna say _don’t_ ask him a million questions,” he muttered.

“Yes, I lived there from ages 12 through 22,” Bill said as though reciting from a textbook.

 _Act natural,_ Dipper chastised him.

“And you went to PSU, right? What did you study?” asked their mom.

“I was a business major, I minored in theater.”

“Oh, so you act? Been in anything big?”

“...no, not really, I was only in a few small, local productions.”

“Can we _not_ interrogate my boyfriend?” Dipper interrupted, ignoring how his heart did a stupid jump after the word _boyfriend._ Bill mentally laughed at him.

“Come on, Mason, we’re not _interrogating_ him. So how long has this been going on?” Their dad pointed between the two of them. “I mean, officially.”

Bill and Dipper glanced at each other. “Officially? Uh, a month-ish,” Dipper replied, fibbing. “But unofficially -”

“- a _long_ time,” Bill interrupted, grinning. “It just took us a long time to actually _talk_ about it, y’know? And not just -”

Dipper elbowed him hard in the side to shut him up. “ _Anyway,_ yeah, we were - I’ll put it up on Facebook soon.”

“Are you three doing alright financially?” asked the twins’ mom. “‘Cause I know some seasons are rougher -”

“Don’t worry, Mom, we’re fine,” Mabel assured her. “Tourists are suckers and Dipper’s a good investor.”

“Not like, _real_ investing,” Dipper said hastily, not wanting to get into the whole investment talk with their dad. When he was 15 he asked a simple question and got a two hour lecture. Having a banker for a dad had its drawbacks. “Just, y’know. Smart purchasing decisions.”

“Good man. So, Bill, what d’you like?” asked their dad. “Hobbies, I mean.”

“I...well, I like hiking, I cook, I help S - Mabel garden sometimes...I practice some martial arts, I guess.”

“Martial arts? Like what?” asked their mom.

“Oh, y’know, a few of them. I know some tae kwon do, I’m pretty solid with capoeira -”

“Capoeira?”

“It’s Brazilian, it focuses more on evading than attacking and you have to be pretty... _bendy.”_

 _You’re doing great,_ thought Dipper, impressed.

 _You don’t have to sound so surprised,_ Bill sniffed.

_Keep going, I think you’re impressing them._

_Really? Hm._

_That was a suspicious “hm.”_

Bill slung an arm around Dipper’s shoulders and met his eyes. “And I know _somebody_ who’s glad I’m this bendy, huh?”

Dipper could only stare at him in horror and shove him. “ _Shut up!”_ he hissed. Mabel’s lips were pursed as she tried not to laugh and Bill _was_ laughing, one of his hands over his mouth.

“ _Anyway,”_ said Dipper hurriedly, fully aware that he was blushing and hoping his parents had somehow missed the glaring double entendre, “er, the three of us and Pacifica are all going to France soon.”

Thankfully, this distracted their parents. “ _Really?_ Well, that sounds like so much fun!” exclaimed their mom. “You’re so lucky, take lots of pictures!”

“Bet it’s nice having a rich girlfriend, huh?” their dad teased Mabel.

“It’s pretty great,” Mabel agreed. “She said she’s gonna visit some of her friends from college while we’re there.”

“That’s right, she went to college in France, I forgot,” said their mom.

“So, you got any college stories, Bill?” their dad asked, leaning back in his chair.

Bill’s eyes widened briefly in this new opportunity to be ridiculous. “ _Well,”_ he began, grinning broadly, “actually, _I_ don’t have a lot, but P - _Dipper_ here told me a _great_ story about -”

_Bill, no, no no no no -_

“ - the time he and his friends crashed a bachelor party and -”

_Bill I swear to God, if you tell this story -_

And Bill proceeded to tell the twins’ parents the worst possible college story parents could ever hear.

 

“I _hate_ you,” Dipper complained, shoving Bill off the bed. “You’re an _asshole._ The _worst.”_

“Ahh, you don’t _hate_ me,” said Bill confidently, easily stopping himself midair and falling back onto the bed, wrapping an arm around Dipper. “That was fun! I like your parents.”

“They’re not going to like _me_ after that,” Dipper grumbled, still determinedly facing away from Bill.

“Come _on,_ look at me, little tree.”

“No.”

“Look at meee -”

_“No.”_

Bill sighed and rolled back over, facing the ceiling. “Fine, be mad. It was pretty funny though, huh?”

“It was _not..._ ugh, whatever. You survived meeting my parents as my ‘boyfriend.’ _I_ didn’t, but _you_ did.” Dipper reluctantly rolled over and gave Bill an awkward pat on the shoulder while keeping his head turned away. “Congrats, that’s a relationship milestone.”

Bill responded by wrapping him in a massive hug, eliciting a grunt. “Another one down! Gee, I’m so _human_ today.” He wrinkled his nose. “Not a fan. Can we go do some magic stuff? Terraform the backyard a bit? Head off to the mountains and blow some shit up?”

“Maybe later. Right now you’re lucky that I’m within five feet of you.” Dipper had his face pressed against Bill’s chest.

“Pine Tree.”

“What.”

“Pine Tree.”

“ _What.”_

“Little tree -”

“ _What?”_ Dipper snapped, pulling away so he could glare at Bill.

A moment passed.

A horribly smug expression crossed Bill’s face. “I got you to look at me.”

Before Dipper could roll his eyes, swear at him, and turn back over, Bill grabbed him by his shoulders and kissed him.

He pulled away a few seconds later, opening his mouth. He paused, then closed it.

“What?” Dipper asked grumpily, blushing.

Bill shook his head. “Nothing. So, magic? Ooh, and alcohol?”

Dipper sighed for an unnecessarily long time, his hand over his face, then heaved himself upright. “Fine. But absolutely _not_ at the same time.”

“Understood.”

 

_(Early July)_

_(When you finally find it_

_You'll see how it's faded_

_The underside is lighter_

_When you turn it around)_

 

Sometimes it wasn’t easy. Sometimes it was hard.

Sometimes there was guilt that Dipper felt deep in his chest or his bones, shame that swam far beneath the surface of his subconscious, anger and pain that smoldered at the pit of his stomach.

With only a few small choices, he had managed to completely sever his ties to much of what life had to offer. He would never be able to date normally, to meet someone and genuinely fall in love, to have a long-term, serious relationship. At the opposite end of the spectrum, he would never be able to meet one-night-stands or have flings. He didn’t have the time of his life where people his age were able to fool around and figure out what they wanted and when they wanted it; he had bypassed his 20’s and jumped straight to his late 30’s and into a “relationship” bound by rules out of his control that he was going to be in for the rest of his life.

He would never be able to tolerate his friends complaining about their spouses in ten years, cracking jokes about how they were being “tied down” - _he_ had the ball and chain, not any of these people who were able to _choose_ their spouses. They were the luckiest people in the world to have lifelong committed relationships with those that they loved.

It wasn’t always like this, of course. Sometimes it was _great,_ sometimes he would wake up at 9 in the morning with the sunlight pouring from the window onto their bed and his face pressed against Bill’s chest, Bill’s arms around him, and he would drift off for another hour or two because it was _perfect._

But Bill was much more tolerable when he was asleep.

Some of the things he said before or during sex haunted Dipper in the nights following, like the idea that he was the only one who could give Dipper what he wanted - _was it true?_ Were Bill’s actions and movements so tailor-made for Dipper, now that they shared all thoughts and emotions, that no 100% all-natural human being could never live up to them? Were their souls so finely in tune that they had become perfect for each other without intention?

If Bill was suddenly gone, was no longer in Dipper’s life, would he actually be able to ever be with someone else?

It was a hypothetical situation, but still a terrifying one.

The worst, though, was knowing how the few other people in his family who knew about Bill would react if they knew about this precarious, awkward situation. There was the guilt, hot and thick like lava. To the man who Bill had taken advantage of for years, had manipulated and twisted and played like a fiddle, to one of Dipper’s great uncles, this would seem like the greatest betrayal of all.

Even casual phone conversation with Ford felt like a punch in the face by Dipper’s thoroughly abused moral compass. Eventually, due to both his parents and some Facebook statuses that did not go unnoticed, Dipper was forced to tell Stan and Ford about his “boyfriend.” They had joked about the whole “Bill” thing, of course, just to acknowledge the elephant in the room before said elephant would make a point to acknowledge itself, as Dipper knew Bill eventually would. But he had had to explain to them that Bill was a funny, clever, exuberant, affectionate, if rather uncontrollable guy, and definitely, totally not the demon they had all had troubles with in some way or another since the 70’s.

He thought about this lying in bed with the covers pulled up to his chest, Bill asleep next to him, the sun starting to rise outside the window. His heart was heavy under the comforter and his right hand was curled over his chest. This was just one of many sleepless nights, one of many excursions into his subconscious.

Bill shifted and mumbled something that sounded like _assassination,_ and Dipper reflexively glanced over at him. His eyebrows were furrowed and his hair was everywhere. Dipper caught a few glimpses of his dreams in the headspace; they were quite violent.

 _He’s a demon,_ Dipper reminded himself. _There’s human in him, but he’ll always be a demon._

Bill had confessed something a few months after the second soul bond ritual: The emotions he had felt and expressed during the few weeks after the initial emotion transfer between himself and Mabel were as intense as they were because of how recent his transformation was. The wildfire flares of humanity he had experienced would start to calm down, and his true self would rear its ugly, morally twisted head again. Not as much as before, but enough.

Whenever Bill grinned and his pointed teeth flashed in the light, or his pupils narrowed into cat-like slits, or he reminisced fondly on a horrible event he had caused, Dipper was reminded of who he would become once this body died.

So the present was important, Dipper knew this. The present was so important to them both.

He rolled over and wrapped an arm around Bill’s middle, pulling them close together. He felt Bill stir, his own arm moving automatically to hold Dipper in the same fashion.

“Whas’goinon?” Bill mumbled sleepily, his nose bumping against Dipper’s forehead. “Is it morning already?”

“No,” Dipper replied, scooting closer and resting his head against Bill’s neck. He could feel Bill’s heartbeat where their chests touched. “Go back to sleep.”

“Mm, you just wanted _company,_ I see how it is.” Bill’s sleazy tone was diminished as he slurred his words together.

“Shut up.” Dipper’s words were muffled by Bill’s skin. “I said go back to sleep.”

“ _Hmph,_ can do.” Bill’s lips brushed Dipper’s forehead and they relaxed into each other’s arms.

Dipper felt the easy rise and fall of Bill’s chest and found himself asleep almost instantly. This was their peace; this was his home.

 

 _(August 22_ _nd_ _)_

_(Everything stays_

_Right where you left it_

_Everything stays_

_But it still changes)_

 

The door swung open and hit the wall with a _bang._ “Dipper, wake up!”

His face mashed against the pillows, Dipper reached out and grabbed for his phone on the bedside table. “What - Mabel, we’re not working today -”

A frustrated sigh. “Dip, what day is it?”

“Umm...the 22nd?...oh.”

Mabel sat down on his bed and the whole mattress jumped. “Go downstairs!”

“ _Why?”_ Dipper complained, rolling over and glaring at her. “What did you do??”

She made a face. “Okay, one: you look awful, and two: _I_ didn’t do anything, but somebody else did!”

Dipper reached up and tried to flatten down his hair, but she shook her head. “Not _that,_ it’s…” she gestured at his body, “... _that_ whole situation.”

Dipper grimaced. “Hickies, huh?”

“ _Everywhere.”_

“Come to think of it, maybe this is why he was so aggressive…” Dipper mumbled to himself, but stopped at his sister’s revolted expression. “Not important! Fine, I’ll get up, but there better be food.”

“There is, there is!” Mabel grabbed him by the hand and was about to pull him out of the bed, but he quickly yanked it away.

She made a frustrated sound and reached for him again, but he swatted her away. “I’m not wearing any pants, back off.”

 _“Ohh._ Okay, I’ll be downstairs!” She bounced to her feet and left the room.

Dipper hobbled out of bed and hurriedly pulled on a pair of shorts and a shirt, not wanting Mabel to come in again, and headed out.

Downstairs, Mabel was waiting to point him into the dining room.

“What, did he cook for me?” Dipper asked, rubbing his head. “I just hope he wasn’t _drunk_ like last time, St. Patrick’s Day was a trainwreck -”

“Nope, perfectly sober! I don’t think even _Bill_ drinks at 9 in the morning,” said Mabel with a snort.

“If he’s in the right mood, I wouldn’t put it past him.” Dipper headed for the dining room, where all of his favorite breakfast foods were waiting.

“What’cha say, Pine Tree?” said Bill smugly from where he stood at the kitchen entrance. His arms were folded across the _WORSHIP THE COOK_ apron he was wearing; Dipper stifled a laugh.

“I say for an asshole, you really know how to pamper a guy,” Dipper replied, giving Bill a begrudging smile.

“Eh, I got suckered into it. Your sister’s very convincing. Scoot over. Hey, Star!” Bill shouted. “You can get in on this!”

“Oh, sweet!”

Dipper was reluctant to admit how much he liked their family dynamic, how much he liked this, Mabel’s elbow bumping him as she reached across him to stab a strawberry, Bill’s nose bumping him as he kissed his cheek, Mabel’s little snort in response. After a year, they were well and truly at home with one another.

In a way, they all loved each other. The men had the soul bond and the complicated emotions that came with it. Mabel had her everlasting faith in Bill’s goodness, in what little conscience he had, in how he liked to have fun. And Bill liked her, liked her enthusiasm and deviousness, and they shared a similar interest - embarrassing Dipper.

 _So what did Mabel make you do?_ Dipper asked.

_Nothing crazy. We’re going to dinner tonight._

_What else?_

_Well, how do you suggest we celebrate the date we consummated our relationship?_ Bill’s mouth twitched.

Dipper shook his head. _You realize you’re using that word wrong?_

_Whatever! You know what I mean. We began this lovely lifelong partnership. We took the first step on this grand journey, this great adventure, this -_

_I’ll do anything to keep you from waxing poetic. Why don’t we just, like, chill?_ Dipper suggested. _Sit back and watch TV. You can play Fallout on the Xbox._

_Really?? You’ll let me?_

_Well, not on_ my _account, but yeah. Not everything has to be grandiose, Bill._

 _I know that,_ Bill scoffed. _I’m just trying to be_ nice.

_You can be nice by chilling out._

_I guess I’ll be okay with “chilling out” if I’m with you all day._

Dipper scooted closer to Bill and knocked his shoulder against his. _I won’t leave your side._

 

And so they chilled.

Mabel left to spend time with Pacifica and do some shopping to leave them alone, and they curled up on the couch and watched action movies, as it was the only genre that could hold Bill’s attention for more than a few seconds.

Aside from the sounds of guns and people shouting coming from the TV, the house was quiet. There was no need for spoken words. They let their thoughts travel in and out of each other’s minds, and it was okay, and it was better than okay.

 _Why is this our “anniversary” again?_ Bill asked, reaching across Dipper’s lap for a bag of potato chips.

 _‘Cause Mabel said so,_ Dipper replied. _Apparently we had to have one, I guess._

_Well, it was a good day. I don’t mind celebrating it._

It was a good day. After weeks of separation and pain, they were able to come together again, to reunite and become whole once again. Much better than the first soul bond ritual, with all of Dipper’s hesitation and suspicion. It was full of happiness and their devotion that ran deeper than any emotion, a devotion powerful enough to keep them together despite all that tried to come between them, even their own personalities.

Much, much later, Dipper realized that that was when he fell in love with Bill.

Not all at once, of course. There was a reason he didn’t say it until Christmas. It took time to sink in, and even more time for him to reluctantly accept that the soul bond had influenced his emotions so intensely. He loved Bill in a way he could never love anybody else. It was instinctual, it was reflexive. He was supposed to love Bill like this because of their bond. How else could you stay with someone for an entire lifetime, if not because you love them?

As much angst as it had caused him to come to terms with his feelings, it was _hilarious_ to watch and feel Bill deal with his own. Dipper had very little experience with love, but Bill had _none._ All he had was possessiveness and infatuation and obsession, not _love._ But now something as horrifically organic as romantic love was being forced into his mind, his body, and it clashed violently enough with his demon-ness to royally piss him off.

In time, obviously, he accepted it, dealt with it. He loved Dipper in a way unique to his half-demon self, unique to their unusual relationship. A love that _had_ to exist, that was built into the soul bond and that twisted and turned to become an emotion that he could feel. He would never feel the romantic love that Mabel felt, or even that Dipper felt. It was an exotic kind of love that would only ever exist within his hybrid soul.

Dipper leaned over and bumped his head against Bill’s shoulder. _I love you._

The headspace flickered blue in surprise before melting into a gentle green. _Love you too, little tree. It’s been a weird year._

 _Yep,_ Dipper agreed.

_Probably one of the weirdest in my whole life._

_Really? This year, out of billions?_

_So many of them were uninteresting. I sat around doing almost_ nothing _for a couple million years while the Earth developed intelligent life. I got bored and hopped over into another galaxy to screw around with some cool aliens, but I got booted real fast, so that plan was shot to hell. Had some wacky adventures with my friends, but nothing was super_ weird, _just unpredictable and funny and occasionally dangerous._ Bill took a long drink of soda. _Being human and feeling your emotions is_ way _weirder than any of that._

Dipper grinned. _So I’ve officially impressed you, cool._

Bill waved his hand dismissively. _You impressed me years ago, little tree, ever since I met you and your sister. Both very impressive. Tons of magical potential, I’ve almost never seen that much before._

_Feel free to keep complimenting me._

Bill laughed and threw an arm around Dipper’s shoulders. _You say that, but you get a little embarrassed every time I say anything nice about you._

The headspace became a dull blue. _Not true,_ Dipper muttered.

 _Yes true,_ Bill countered, _and it’s easy to prove, just look through our memories._

 _Well, for a long time your compliments were never genuine, so I guess I just thought that you were...lying, or something,_ Dipper admitted. _You can’t deny that you compliment me to get what you want._

 _Okay, yes, I have done that in the past, but just because I’m using it as a means to an end doesn’t mean I don’t think it’s true!_ Bill defended himself. _I think you’re cute regardless if I want something from you or not._

 _I guess,_ Dipper conceded. _Still._

 _My_ point _is that you get all flustered and happy when I compliment you. It’s_ adorable. _Humans are so funny in how they react to just…words. They can completely undo you._

Dipper crossed his arms and sank into the couch. _Can we be done with this conversation? We’re missing the movie._

 _Eh, this isn’t one of the good Fast and Furious’s, it’s fine._ Bill threw an arm over Dipper’s shoulder and kissed his neck, his other hand groping at Dipper’s thigh. _We can stand to miss some of it._

Dipper grinned faintly and leaned into it, leaned into him, their bodies adjusting to make room for each other. _Good, ‘cause it seems like your attention lies elsewhere._

 

There was some grief behind their playful teasing and bickering throughout the day and into the evening. It was the dull blue-gray eye of the swirling green hurricane that filled the shared headspace. It could only be found if one was looking for it.

It was Dipper’s, largely, and if there were any of Bill’s emotions there, they were thin and wispy and translucent. It was Dipper’s grief and sadness and regret and frustration rolled into a compact little ball and hidden behind great fogs of green and teal.

None of it was very new. It was the same mourning for potential he had felt for over a year now, knowing how much he forced himself to give up. He and Bill were bound until death. They would spend the rest of their lives together. Dipper’s wretched heart was filled with an unusual love that he needed but didn’t want, that was reciprocated in the oddest of ways, that annoyed and bothered him.

In the end, it was about acceptance. He could protest, complain, or fight, but nothing would change their situation. And he didn’t _want_ it to change, really, considering how light and wonderful his body and mind felt when he was near Bill in any form or fashion.

It was about acceptance. It was finding joy and happiness within their interactions and relationship, in their conversations and shared activities and motions and touches. Teasing out the humanity from a demon who did his best to shove it all down, and marveling at his very existence, the parts of him that Dipper loved and was learning to love.

Acceptance. Bill’s weirdly yellow eyes. His blond hair that they worked together to re-dye every few months after they started noticing his dark roots growing out. His big, shark-toothed, crooked smile with a thousand and one implications behind it. His nose, his jaw, his ears, his mouth when they kissed and didn’t stop.

Acceptance. Bill’s absolute shit sense of humor that stretched all the way from _Jackass_ to clever comedians and satirical books. His terrible taste in films _and_ his habit of talking over them the entire time. His equally annoying habit of cooking while drunk. His severe nymphomania that Dipper suffered from on a regular basis. Those few, brief moments where Dipper saw real softness in his eyes, and knew that he cared.

Acceptance.

 

They got back late from dinner tipsy on red wine and laughing and snorting and shoving each other all over the place. Dipper challenged Bill to a fight, and Bill chased him around the house into the backyard, eventually catching up to him and grappling for a few minutes before forcing him to the ground.

“I - _hic -_ I win,” Bill declared, grinning.

“Gerroff me,” Dipper complained, half-heartedly pushing at Bill’s arms. “We’re gonna - get dirty, look’it all this dirt, see?” He smacked the ground next to him.

To his surprise, Bill did get off, sitting back on his knees and then hopping to his feet. Dipper, still on the ground, heard him walking around and struggled into a sitting position to see Bill directing a glowing stick as it carved lines into the soft earth.

“What’re you doing?” Dipper asked, his head tilted.

Bill glanced over at him. “Makin’ our circle.” The stick waved.

Dipper laughed. “Why?? And how do you still remember it??”

“All-powerful omnipotent beings have good memories, little tree,” Bill replied, only answering one question and swaying on the spot.

Dipper rolled his eyes but got up and stumbled over to Bill, grabbing his arm, and watched the stick move around and complete the complicated circle full of runes and shapes. When it was done, the yellow glow around the stick dissipated, and it fell to the ground.

Bill took Dipper’s hand. “C’mon.” He pulled him down, and they sat in the middle of the circle with their legs crossed, their knees bumping together.

“You know we don’t need to, like, _renew_ th’ soul bond, right?” Dipper said pointedly.

Bill laughed, a quick _huff_ through his teeth, and leaned forward until their foreheads touched. Every thought, emotion, or flyaway image in the headspace was amplified by a few degrees. “Just wanted to be in this place again, where we tied our souls together, all that crap, can you believe - can you believe we’ve made it a whole year without killing each other?” he asked, smiling, his eyes half-closed.

Dipper rolled his eyes but allowed a smile to cross his face. “Somehow we made it work.”

Bill’s hands closed over Dipper’s. “We’ll keep making it work, y’know? We can - we can make the best of this situation, little tree,” he said quietly, and kissed him, their mouths barely moving against each other.

Dipper pulled away to properly look at Bill, at the soft cloud of inebriation in his burning eyes and at his surprisingly gentle expression. “Yeah,” he agreed. “We - we’ve got this.”

They kissed again, Bill murmuring “ _you’re mine”_ as their bodies shifted, and Dipper whispered an “ _I’m yours”_ in return, for Bill’s benefit if nothing else.

“I love you,” he said, looking at their hands. “Despite everything that’s happened, despite you trying to ruin my life, hurting Ford, hurting countless people, terrorizing me throughout my childhood -”

Bill sighed. “I love it when you talk dirty to me.”

“- just generally being an asshole and manipulating the _hell_ out of me, I - this soul bond _made_ me love you, and I love you, and I feel so _guilty -”_ Dipper quickly stopped himself; he hadn’t intended this to be therapy hour.

“You feel _guilty_ for loving me?” Bill said incredulously, hiccuping. “You think - y’think I don’t feel the same way?”

Dipper frowned at him. “You feel guilty?”

“Of course I do! _Look_ at me!” Bill gestured at himself and nearly toppled over backwards. “Everything I am, everything I used to be, has been neg _\- negated_ by being _human!_ When I die in another 60 something years, do you know how - how _humiliated_ I’m going to feel? We both feel guilty, little tree, you’re not alone there.”

Dipper huffed a laugh. “I guess we really do share everything, huh.”

Bill waved it off. “Let’s not think about that. It’s our _anniversary!”_

Dipper caught a glow out of the corner of his eye. “Bill, what’re you -”

Suddenly, the runes and circles and lines were shining a brilliant pale green, and Dipper jumped. “Whoa, what the hell!” he yelped, staring at the ground, at the tint from the glow on the grass and dirt. “What -”

“Relax, ‘s just some magic, chill out,” Bill said lazily, pulling Dipper back to him and kissing him before he could respond. “‘S our circle,” was pressed against Dipper’s mouth, “th’ circle that bound - that bound us together, and I’m so - little tree, I’m so happy that you’re mine.”

Dipper laughed, lightly shoving Bill’s shoulder. “Not a - not a huge fan of, um, _being yours,_ but do whatever y’want, Bill. Asshole.”

“You’re cute when you insult me,” Bill replied, their noses and foreheads bumping together.

His words were so uncharacteristically _Bill._ They felt like summer sunlight. Rarely if ever was he this warm or this particular kind of happy, a bubbly, silly, flirty happiness.

“You’re not acting like you,” Dipper noticed, his voice a little too loud.

Bill twisted his mouth. “I think my humanity’s gone _rogue.”_ He rapped his head with a fist. “S’ all over the place.”

If Dipper pushed past their shared headspace into Bill’s subconscious, he could see that the area that housed Bill’s emotional capacity was going wild, vibrant human feelings bursting like fireworks and tainting his mind.

He laughed. “Yeah, you’re - you’re really human right now.”

“I don’t _like_ it,” Bill whined. “Is this what happens when I drink red wine?”

“If it is, will you stop drinking?” Dipper asked, raising an eyebrow.

Bill frowned. “Maybe I should.”

“At least for tonight.” Dipper reached for Bill’s hands again. The unnatural warmth of his skin had never felt so natural, so normal.

Bill closed the distance between them again and kissed Dipper, who returned it with none of their usual fervor or intensity.

“Somehow, I love you,” Bill said as they broke apart, their lips still brushing, his words almost lost in the warm air. “In this weird, annoying, stupid way, I love you.” The pale green of the magic lit up his body.

Dipper felt himself glowing, his heart light and the headspace humming with their own shade of green. “I love you too, in an equally annoying stupid way,” he replied, grinning. He couldn’t say it enough.

As if to mirror the memory, they sat in the circle with their hands locked and their foreheads touching, just as happy and content as they were exactly one year ago, if not more so. Dipper could feel the memory in their heads, too; he saw them both in the light of day, felt their old excitement, relief, and grateful joy - he could even hear his sister sobbing in the background, if he focused hard enough.

Eventually, the glow faded, and Bill backed away. He took Dipper’s hand and pulled him to his feet, and they both swayed slightly, stumbling on the grass.

Bill tugged at Dipper’s hand, then released it, heading for the back door. “C’mon, I wanna fuck you in some weird place in the house,” he said, loud enough for Dipper to hear him from a good few feet behind him. “Where haven’t we done it yet?? Laundry room, living room, basement, roof…maybe we should experiment with public areas…”

Shaking his head, laughing, and maybe at peace with his own personal world, Dipper followed Bill inside.

 

_(Ever so slightly_

_Daily and nightly_

_In little ways_

_When everything stays.)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have heard your suggestions for other oneshots and am keeping those in mind for when i'm done with my freshman year, i promise! things have been very hectic and stressful with school. don't be an economics/polsci major, kids. you will suffer. there is one oneshot that is guaranteed to be completed and posted at some point soon...i won't spoil too much, but it takes place in 2032, 10 years after the story begins.
> 
> i also received a WONDERFUL gift from my buddy snii, if you enjoy porn i encourage you to check it out [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10511661/chapters/23197896) and drop her a comment or two, she deserves it.
> 
> thanks so much to all of you for your continued love and support.

**Author's Note:**

> hi everybody!! so this is the second part of soulbond'verse, the oneshot collection! i started these because honestly i don't want the dm universe to end with dm, i have so many ideas! thank you for reading, and thank you for all the feedback on dm!! without it this probably wouldn't be here.


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